


Captain Rising

by ThiccDiccEnergy



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Aliens, Anal Sex, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Body Worship, Bondage, Descriptions of Delicious Food, Double Penetration, Drug Use, Drunk Sex, Enthusiastic Consent, Eventual Smut, Exhibitionism, F/F, F/M, Gender neutral for most scenes, Lingerie, M/M, Masochism, Multi, Oral Sex, Reader-Insert, Religion Kink, Ritual Sex, Roleplay, Sadism, Somnophilia, Space Pirates, Temperature Play, Vaginal Sex, Violence, Voyeurism, Xenophilia, You are a Badass, during sex, reader is a badass, reader is bisexual or pansexual, sex scenes will have a male and female version, you are the captain now, you deserve to be the captain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:54:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 96,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26982463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThiccDiccEnergy/pseuds/ThiccDiccEnergy
Summary: You were dumped into a world that wasn't yours and found yourself fighting for your life on a ship in the stars. Now you're plagued with mysterious dreams, battling your way through human and alien threats, and trying desperately to keep up with your space-age amazon delivery job; all while you struggle to protect the crew you're falling in love with.There's nothing you won't do to keep them safe, and soon one thing becomes clear; In order to survive you must rise into your position as Captain.
Relationships: Crewmate & Crewmate (Among Us), Crewmate/Crewmate (Among Us), Crewmates/Reader (Among Us), Female Reader/Female Crewmate, Female Reader/Male Crewmate, Male Reader/Female Crewmate, Male Reader/Male Crewmate, Reader & Other(s), Reader/Crew
Comments: 336
Kudos: 568





	1. Rainbow Spacesuits? Oh Fuck.

You woke up on the floor of a spaceship, face down and neck twisted at a strange angle. You were wearing a helmet that you didn’t remember putting on when you went to bed last night.

You got up as quickly as you could, scrambling to get your feet under you. When you fully straightened up you realized that you were surrounded by bodies, sprawled out across a gray floor.

At first you thought you were dead, but you when you bent besides one of them you noticed that their chest was rising and falling. You looked down at your own hands, you were wearing a red space suit, and were surrounded by seven others in identical suits of different colors.

You recognized the layout of the room you were in. Five tables, three halls, a full kitchen behind a metal bar. You were in a game.

A game about murdering people.

And there was a clock on the wall counting down from two hours toward zero.

Was some sick fuck trying to recreate their favorite game?

Were the others victims like you? Would they be as confused and scared when they woke?

How could you protect them? If they were dragged into it like you then they didn’t deserve to die.

Luckily, you didn’t have to play by the limits of the game.

You raised your hands to your helmet, twisted, and pulled. It popped off.

You know how you feel when you’re underwater? That's not how you felt when you took your helmet off.

When you’re underwater you’re holding your breath, it’s a completely different sensation when you try to take a breath and there is nothing there at all. That's what happened without your helmet, you tried to breathe and there was nothing to go into your lungs, You felt your chest inflate, but nothing filled it.

You jammed the helmet back on, the pressure equalizing slow enough that your vision went fuzzy before you could get a full lung full of air. You gasped for it.

Okay, helmets stayed on.

Time for plan b.

You walked around every hallway of the ship, and it was a ship. You had initially thought (read: hoped) it was an elaborate set, but after checking the airlocks and setting a chair off into space you realized that it was as real as could be.

Fuck.

You would panic later, you didn’t have time for panic right now, with the others stirring in the cafeteria and possible deaths in the future.

You got back just as the figure in the black suit was twitching awake.

As expected, they jolted when they woke. They saw you standing over them and backpedaled, in a defensive stance, scrambling to their feet with their back to the wall.

You put your hands up in the universal sign of surrender. There was a moment where neither of you moved.

They began gesturing at you, and you slowly realized they were trying to speak with you.

They reached for their helmet, and presumably would have pulled it off if you hadn’t grasped their hands in yours and held them away from their head. You couldn’t see anything through the one-way mirror of the glass panel, anything could be under that helmet.

When you released them you mimed choking, wrapping your hands around your neck. You knew a tiny bit of sign language, but there was no guarantee that they did. They nodded, understanding your impromptu message.

You knelt besides another of the figures on the floor, this one blue. They were twitching awake, and you soothed them when they fully came to awareness, giving them the same instructions not to move their helmets.

The only person who ignored your warning was the person in yellow. He pulled off his helmet against your instructions, revealing a young, borderline gaunt looking man with black hair, and brown eyes ringed by dark circles. His skin wasn’t pale, but it looked almost sickly.

He cast the helmet away from himself the moment he pulled it off his head. It skittered across the room and landed against the wall, completely silent.

You lunged for it immediately, knowing that behind you he was realizing that there was no atmosphere to breath. You moved faster than you ever had, tearing his hands away from his face to re-secure the helmet. He went frighteningly still for a moment, and you thought back to how you almost passed out with only a momentary removal of your own helmet.

You cursed in relief when he moved, unheard behind the protection of your helmet. His hands gripped onto your arms, so tight you felt like they would bruise. You gave his shoulders a gentle shake, releasing him only after you were sure he got the message to keep the helmet attached.

The others all followed your instruction after that.

Luckily for you a few of the others seemed to recognize the game like you had. It would make things easier.

You explained the original game by writing it onto a piece of paper, and then drew a layout of the ship from when you had walked it. When someone had a question they jotted it down, and you did your best to answer them. You explained that you planned to block the vents with the tool cabinets you noticed during your walk-through. They were heavy, and nothing would be getting through the vents with those metal monstrosities on top of them. The tools inside of them would be inaccessible, but you wouldn’t need those tools to complete your tasks if they were accurate to the game.

You walked the entire group into the lower tunnel, pointing to the heavy crates and then toward the storage room passage that connected to the electrical room. Orange, blue, and black rushed to help you push them into place.

With the passage blocked the ship was cleanly divided into two, you took the team into each half and blocked the vents. You noted that Blue seemed to be the strongest member of the team (despite being one of the smaller members) but even they were not able to move the tool cabinets that you dragged over the vents on their own.

Even if the imposter could move the cabinets, they would be loud, warning everyone of its presence.  
The purpose of dividing the map into two was for the sake of establishing where everyone was.

Half of you would be on one side of the ship and would complete all of the tasks that you had there, then, you would switch. If someone was where they weren't supposed to be then they were the imposter, and if someone was killed...at least you would know what side they were on.

It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was the best you could do in such a short amount of time.

You sorted the others into two groups. You were in group one with White, orange, and yellow. Black, Green, Blue, and Purple made up group two. It made it easier to remember which color should be on each side. You shook everyone's hand as they separated into their groups. If you could, you would have wished them luck.

You watched the timer countdown to zero.


	2. Not a Good Marshmallow

A screen appeared in your visor with a beep. It was the first sound you had heard that you had not made since you woke up on the floor. 

As expected, a list of tasks blinked, projected onto the screen of the glass dome. You had ten tasks in total, six one one side, four on the other. You would have liked to say that you went into the game with confidence and the grit of a detective from a noir film, but you were pretty sure you would have shit yourself if the fear didn’t lock up your bowels. 

Oh yes you had kept it together enough to give the others a fighting chance but you were pretty sure all the imposter would have to do to take you out of commission was tap you on the shoulder and induce a heart attack!

First of all, how the fuck were you supposed to do electrical tasks on a foreign spaceship? You didn’t know if the circuitry would be anything resembling what you had on earth! Even if it was, if it wasn’t as simple as the game you could easily be working elbow deep in wires for hours to complete even one of your tasks!

You took a deep breath, there was no time to panic, not now that the entrance to the hallway was staring at you like the dark eye of an angry god. You glanced around you, glad that your helmet obscured the conflict on your face. Everyone was watching you, waiting for you to make a move. 

You straightened and marched into the depths of the ship.

The good news was that the wiring was as simple as it was in the game. The bad news was that when you were looking over your shoulder every six seconds it took forever to connect the frayed wire ends.

You pulled out of the panel in the wall just in time to jump into the air, relieved when Yellow walked in. You didn’t know for sure, but you were pretty sure that he was human. He poked around at another task, but jumped up and rushed to stop you when you gave him a curt nod and began to hurry out of the room. 

You froze up as he waved you down, resisting the urge to visibly fidget when he stood in front of you. To your surprise, he touched the glass dome of his helmet with his right hand, and then extended it toward you. He had thanked you, in sign language. 

You returned the same gesture, you were pretty sure that was ‘you’re welcome’ as well. He seemed to perk up, and bowed his head before opening the door to leave. 

You practically caught him when he fell back into the room. He had reeled away from something just outside the door. You moved him aside as fast as you could and and burst out into the hall. 

Orange was not the imposter, because Orange was laying on the ground, trying to crawl away from shields. They left a smear of red blood on the metal floor behind them, and they were twitching weakly where they lay. You swore under your helmet. There was a puncture on the back of their suit, presumably it went all the way through. 

You propped Orange up against the wall, fumbling at the blood soaked fabric. You found the puncture and gathered the fabric of the suit into a fist, twisting it to stop the air from leaking out. 

You looked around for Yellow, waving him closer frantically. You showed him where to grip the fabric on Oranges back, twisting and pressing against the wound that was under the suit, trying desperately to staunch the bleeding. 

You needed to get back to the cafeteria to call a meeting. Orange wasn’t dead yet, but they would be (along with you) if that thing found you. 

You flipped Orange onto their side, making sure that Yellow kept a grip on his side of the suit. At the end of the hall you saw a flicker of movement, a bloodstained white glove vanishing around the corner. You fisted Oranges uniform in one hand, gripped them under the arm, and started dragging them. 

Orange lost blood all down the hall, through weapons and into the cafeteria. You did as much as you could, but the seal of your grip around the hole wasn’t perfect. You looked down the hall as you dragged Oranges six foot form, urging yourself to go just a little faster. You counted the seconds, watching the imposter as it flitted just around the corner, watching you drag your crewmate desperately toward safety.

You weren’t even sure that they were alive as you used your free hand to smack the red button. 

You batted Yellows hand away, placing more pressure through the suit and letting out what could have been a prayer to whatever brought you here. Orange was breathing, shallowly but still breathing. You sighed in relief. 

Something hit you in the side of the head hard enough to crack your helmet. Fracturing the face-plate. It wasn’t enough to let the atmosphere out of your suit, but it was enough to make your vision splinter.

At the same time that the blow landed, a static pop filled your ears, and a cacophony of voices broke the silence of your strained breath and heavy heartbeat. 

A radio had turned on between your helmets, they must only work when a meeting was started. 

“Red didn’t do anything!” you weren’t positive, but you were pretty sure that voice was Yellow, he was desperately fisting Oranges uniform like you had been before you were hit. 

“They were standing over the body, that’s pretty suspicious.” 

“They tried to save Orange! Besides, they’re not dead yet, they’re still breathing!” 

“Wait really?” Black knelt besides Orange and placed a hand on their chest. “Shit, Yellows right!” 

“Man, sorry for hitting you.” blue offered a hand to you, guiltily trying to hide the hammer they took you down with behind their back. 

“It’s okay.” your voice cracked as Blue yanked you to your feet with far too much strength. “We need to get Orange to the medical wing as soon as possible, we need to vote...wait? Where’s White?” You spun around, looking for any sign of the imposter. 

“Wasn’t White with you?” Green stepped forward, you assumed they were the one that was talking. 

“White is the imposter? Aren’t they.” Purple jumped to conclusions and nailed the landing. 

“Yeah, they followed us when we- Look out!” Green was standing closest to the entrance to the storage room, behind their tall frame, you caught a flicker of white, and only had enough time to shove Green out of the way before it was on you. 

Whatever the imposter was, it had tentacles like thorns, and one lanced through your stomach, impaling you and ripping a hole that must have been three inches wide into your skin. It felt like popping a balloon. A spray of red mist came out of your mouth and splattered against the cracked glass of your helmet. 

Guts ripping in your body felt like tearing fabric, and strangely a little like tearing cardboard too. You were glad you didn’t hear what guts ripping sounded like, the atmosphere rushed out of your suit and took the sound with it. 

The thing threw its head back and exploded into a mass of tentacles, teeth, and bone spires.

You coughed again, registering that you were moving, dragged along by an uneven bulge on the spear impaling you. The imposter was walking toward the others, they were running, smart of them. Blue was carrying Yellow over their shoulder, he was struggling and screaming, poor thing, your body must look pretty bad. Like a disgusting marshmallow ready to be roasted over the fire.

Green and Purple were flanking, rushing deeper into the ship and turning back to yell at where-oh, black wasn’t retreating. They were crouched over Orange, stubbornly holding their uniform and staunching the blood, watching the imposter advance toward them.

That was stupid, so fucking stupid. It was also the bravest thing you had ever seen. Some part of you refused to let them die with their last action as the desperate attempt to save someone. 

You grabbed the spar in your gut, planted your feet, and with the last strength you had, you shoved yourself farther onto the implement and forced both yourself and the imposter into the airlock across from the storage room. 

You struggled against the massive thing, flailing to get some purchase as it thrashed to get out of the room. You braced an arm on each side of the tiny airlock, lifted a leg, and kicked at the direction of the control panel. 

Your vision was going fuzzy at the edges, you wouldn’t be able to keep it there for much longer, you were dying. You kicked the panel hard enough for the screen to shatter.   
The airlock whooshed closed. 

God damn space was beautiful. If you weren’t impaled on the imposter you would happily die like this, staring at the stars as they danced in a million colors around your twirling body. There were planets nearby that didn’t belong to your solar system, you reached out toward one of them, rainbow and ringed. It seemed like a fantastic sight to be your last. 

Your visor lit up just as the world faded away.

‘Red was not - White was- imposter---you Error---.’


	3. oh no they're hot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are the captain now.

Space was supposed to be cold, so why was your body burning. You felt surrounded by flame, you could see it licking at your skin, blistering your flesh, wafting smoke that smelled like cheap detergent and sweat toward your face. You tried to struggle but you couldn’t, you were stiff where you lay, dead and in rigor mortis with nothing to do but watch as the fire parted and revealed a mass of bone spears, teeth and bulging flesh in a tattered purple uniform. 

It approached your coffin, looking inside at where you stared fearfully back at it. It reached toward you, toward the writhing guts visible through the hole in your stomach. 

It sunk clawed fingers into the wound, lifting a coil of your small intestine. It lifted the gut to its mouth, smiling at you. It kneaded the gore in its hand, using sharp teeth to snip a length of intestine from your body and hang it around your neck like a grotesque necklace. It was cold where it touched your skin, the warmth of your body long since leached from the wet coil. You would have screamed if you could have opened your mouth.

The thing cradled your face. 

“You’re awake!” You took a deep, shuddering breath. Blinking. The image of the creature faded, replaced with a woman. She was beautiful, skin like cinnamon bark, liquid eyes speckled with sailboat reflections, long black hair that fell out of where she had tied it and framed her face. It was soft where it tickled your cheek. 

The ‘gut’ the creature cut was actually a cloth, cool and damp. You still felt like you were on fire, but now you realized it was because you were swaddled under a pile of blankets. You shoved the blankets off your chest, scrambling to pull up the edge of your shirt. Purple tried to stop you, but you batted her hands away. You struggled to get your hands under all the fabric, there were wires attached to your arm, your IV tugged as you moved. 

There was nothing there. Well there was something there but it wasn’t a hole in your stomach. The skin where you had been impaled was new and hairless, like baby skin. It shone with a slight silver shift, scar tissue without the texture.

Your chest heaved. You rolled to the side of the cot you were in and vomited bile. 

“Guys! Help! Captain’s awake!” There was an echo of steps. You heaved again, nothing in your stomach to come up but still going through the motion at the demands of your body. You felt like you were clenching around where your core used to have a hole in it, wound tight like a spring before it snaps. You looked up blearily just as everyone else burst into the room. They froze when they saw you, hunched over and shaking from the adrenaline of waking up and throwing up. Black stepped forward, his hands held out with his palms up. He was wearing black coveralls, different from the suits you first woke in. This didn't have gloves or a helmet. 

“Hey, I'm going to come over there to check you out. Okay?” Under the helmet he had black hair and eyes, raven wing black against his pale skin. You nodded and let him approach you. “Can I take a peek under the blankets?” He pulled on blue, rubber gloves. 

“Yeah.” You lifted the blankets and your shirt away. He pressed his fingertips into the skin around your wound. 

“Tell me if there’s any pain.” The new skin was very sensitive, even the light touch sent lightning bolts down your spine. 

“It doesn’t hurt, it just feels weird.” 

“Weird how?” 

“Like it isn’t supposed to be there.” He frowned and snapped off his gloves. Tuning to the machines attached to your arm. “What happened?” 

“We aren’t sure.” Purple spoke while Black checked the IV. “After you and that thing went out the airlock, the whole ship started shaking. It all kinda blacked out and we woke up in the bunks. Obviously the atmosphere is back, though it’s not actually identical to earth, the ship has a cycle of oxygen, that changes-”

“What Purple means to say is that we woke up a few days ago, you were in your bed too but you weren’t responsive.” Green was a tall, young man with weathered skin and brown hair in a short braid. He had the strongest cheekbones that you had ever seen and a square jaw like someone had taken a compass to it just to make sure it was the perfect angle. “Black said you were in shock, your body was trying to fix a wound that wasn’t there.” 

“Dang right you were in shock Captain, I’m actually surprised you weren’t dead. You were burning brain cells with your temperature by the time we realized you weren’t just asleep.” Black stood to check your fluids. 

“I told you we should have checked sooner.” Yellow frowned, but you had a feeling he was happy to see you. You gave him a wave and a soft smile. The frown eased, his lips twitching up in a tiny motion that could have been your imagination. 

“Well the fever’s gone, and you’ve been sucking up saline pretty good; that means everything's working well enough.” Black sat back next to you. “By the way you have really nice veins.” You blinked in surprise, but gave him a tentative smile. 

“Thanks? I think?”

“Oh that was for sure a compliment.” He winked at you, the only person you had ever met that didn’t look like they were having a seizure when they winked chose to wink at you. You felt blood rush to your face and hoped he mistook it as just a result of the fever. Your head shot up as you realized something, you looked around the room frantically. 

“Orange!” You sighed in relief, Orange was looking great, dressed in the same coveralls as the others. She was tall, over six feet. She had the most beautiful freckles, and her red hair went surprisingly well with her safety-orange suit. When she smiled her eyes shimmered like grass shifting in a field. “You okay?” 

“You bet! All thanks to you Captain!” You grinned back, but the smile quickly fell as Orange shifted uncomfortably under your gaze.

“What's wrong?” 

“Well Captain, I just feel bad, when I woke up I was back to one hundred. When you woke up you were on death's door. Frankly I think it should have been the other way around.” 

“That’s not your Fault.” She tentatively smiled at you. She had tied the arms of her coveralls around her waist, and she lifted the tank top she wore on her torso to show a matching (if a few inches smaller in diameter) circle of silvered skin. 

“Well hey! At least we match now Captain!” 

“Why do you guys keep calling me that?” 

“Captain?” It was Yellow, his voice dry and bordering on sarcastic. “It’s because you are the Captain.” 

“No I’m not!” 

“Yes you are, it’s sewn on your casuals.” Green said.

“What? My casuals?” 

“You’re labeled for it Cap.” Blue passed you a stack of red clothes. Coveralls like the others wore. Sewn onto the fabric over the left breast was a patch, labeled clearly ‘Captain’ in white thread. “Definitely not as cool as mine, but pretty awesome.” You squinted closer at Blue, they were broad and very muscular, with stunning, spun gold hair and a sharp undercut. They were smiling, blue eyes almost deeper than their uniform. Their label said ‘Transport’. 

“You all have them?” 

“Sure do.” Black gestured to his tag, a red cross was sewn into the fabric, preceding the word ‘Medic’. “I used to be a nursing student, guess it makes sense.” You relaxed. Looking down at the white stitches on your casual uniform. 

“Captain huh?” you ran a hand over the embroidery. “Can’t say it fits.” 

“Of course it fits.” Yellow grumbled. “You were Captain without the label.” 

“Got to agree with that one.” Blue slapped him on the back.

“Is anyone else hungry?” The team all looked toward Purple. “What? It's lunch time.” 

“Then go make something!” 

“Yellow!” You gave him a sharp look and he pouted. “Did you guys manage to get into the kitchen?” 

“Yeah, the door was open when we got here!” Orange smiled at you. “It’s fully stocked!” 

“Do we have everything else we need? Toiletries, washing machines, did you move the tools off of the vents?”

“And you had the gall to say that you aren’t fit for Captain, none of us even thought of those things.” Black smirked at you. “Now, let's take you off saline, I’m keeping the I.V in for now, but you should really get some real food before you pass out.” 

You accepted the help of a dozen rainbow hands to get on your feet, your red pajamas doing nothing to protect you from the cold touch of their fingers. 

You finished typing your last email and sent it, groaning and lowering your head into your hands. 

You had two problems. 

The second was that you got into the administration room and immediately discover a backlog of messages from the employer that you didn’t know you had and the customer that you didn’t know that you were delivering cargo to. Apparently none of the others bothered to check the system? 

You explained to the company (called Skeld) that you had come under attack by an unknown entity, and that two of your crewmates had been injured. You then dealt with the shitstorm that was contacting the customer. They understood that you came under attack, but they still felt like you should have still been able to get there two days ago? You had bullshited some excuse about quarantining the crew after the attack (yes it was unethical to lie but what were you supposed to do? Tell them that you were kidnapped from another dimension?) and then dealt with the fallout of that when the customer contacted your employer. After hours of ensuring that no one was showing any negative symptoms and that the cargo would be delivered in the next three days (well within the window given for the delivery). You finally were able to deal with the first, much more pressing problem. 

NONE OF YOUR CREW COULD COOK. 

Yellow had burned toast earlier. TOAST. Purple had a physics degree but thought oatmeal was just cereal that you heated up, Black subsisted almost entirely off of protein shakes, Blue boiled chicken breast and ate it PLAIN and UNSEASONED, and Green seemed to find no joy in food at all, opting to eat three servings of Grapenuts for breakfast. WITHOUT MILK. 

You just couldn’t let someone eat like that in good conscience. 

If one of them even so much as looked at a stove it would spontaneously combust. That meant that you were going to have to feed them, you were going to have to cook for everyone, at least for dinner. You would make sure there were enough leftovers for the next days lunch and then rinse, wash and repeat. 

You stumbled into the kitchen with a headache pounding behind your eyes, chugged a glass of water and pushed through. You washed our hands and started chopping vegetables. 

You had to admit that whoever stocked the kitchen was thorough, and chose healthy, hearty options that would give you energy and fuel you through the day. 

You decided to make enchiladas. You could pop them in the oven and then do some quick stretches while they were cooking. Your body felt like it was ripping apart at the joints and you needed to get out of the hunched position you took while typing pages of painfully professional emails and calling SEVEN different brand representatives. 

You used Blues bland chicken, black beans, jalapeno, onion, pepper and lots of seasoning to stuff corn tortillas fried in a little olive oil, lining two pans with them. You smothered one pan with a quick creamy green Chile sauce (literally canned green chilies, sour cream and cheese) and then the other in mixed shredded cheese. It went in the oven and you did some simple, bodyweight movements to loosen yourself up. 

You were pushing yourself into downward dog (resulting in a crack that was so loud it could have been continents colliding) when six faces peaked almost simultaneously around the corner and into the kitchen. You straightened, wincing at the muscles tightening back up. 

“Hey guys! Just give me ten more minutes. I'm gonna whip up some sides to go with this.” The team made a hasty retreat. 

‘Sides’ ended up being guacamole for the enchiladas and some corn with salt and butter. 

“Sorry dinner is a little underwhelming today, I had a call with corporate.” you shuffled out of the kitchen, balancing a tray of enchiladas in one hand and the guacamole in the other. “Would you guys mind setting the-oh!” The table was set when you walked out, color coded plates with silverware, cups, and even a pitcher of water. 

“I’ll take that.” Purple plucked the enchiladas from your hand and set it on the table, Yellow snagged the Guac bowl before you could react, stunned. 

“I’ll go get the-” as you started to turn back to the kitchen, Black caught your shoulders and began marching you to the seat at the head of the table. 

“You are going to sit down, doctors orders.” He forced you into the chair and pressed you to the cushion that someone had propped against the backrest. 

“This looks incredible!” Blue exclaimed, carrying the corn to the table and setting it down. Green followed with the green chile enchiladas, and Orange set the butter, salt, and milk on the table. 

“Thanks Captain!” they all chorused, Black gave one final squeeze to your shoulder and sat at his place. 

“No problem guys, you’re welcome.” 

They dug in, you were glad they liked it. 

“Did you guys all end up here like me?” you had discovered a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups in the freezer. Also known as dessert. 

While you all sat around a television screen watching Doctor Who from the worn, but extremely comfortable couch set up in the cafeteria, you decided it was finally time to ask the question. 

“I kinda assumed we were all just dumped here, but I never asked.” Everyone had piled themselves around each other, Blue had slung an arm around Orange, resting their palm on the back of your neck to rub soothing circles. Orange had her head on your shoulder, Purple was in Greens lap, Greens leg was entangled with yours and while Yellow snored soundly on your chest Black had his head on your thighs, your fingers in his hair. 

“Same boat Captain.” Purple hummed and went back for her third peanut butter cup. “I used to be a physics major, graduated early and everything.” she entwined her arm with yours from where she was sitting, leaving you with just one to run through Blacks hair. He grumbled, but didn’t complain.

“I was a hollywood stunt double.” Blue said, their hand giving you a gentle squeeze.  
“No way.” Orange mumbled against your neck.

“Way. What about you Orange?”

“Trained service animals, specialized in training them to sense trauma induced attacks.” 

“What good boys!” Blue exclaimed. 

“Shut up Blue, too loud.” Yellow burrowed further into your chest. 

“Don’t be rude, we know you’re sleepy but that's no excuse.” You chastised him. He huffed.

“I used to edit videos, or photos, anything for money.” You nodded, taking your fingers out of Blacks hair for a moment so that you could wrap your arm more securely around Yellow's waist. Black sighed when you returned to your gentle ministrations.

“What about you Green?” there was a sour expression on his face. 

“I was a law student.” 

“Doesn’t seem that you liked it that much.” 

“I didn’t, this is better.” You gave him a sympathetic glance and looked down at your lap, meeting Blacks eyes.

“You said you were a nursing student.”

“Yup, trauma and surgery, three years in.” He cracked a smile “You were my favorite patient by far.” You laughed and twirled his soft hair through your fingers. 

“Flattery will not get you a bigger personal budget.” 

“Awww.” he smirked at you “whatever shall I do.” 

“Maybe get off my leg, it’s going numb.” it wasn’t really, you just couldn't stand the fall of his hot breath against the curve of your hip. You knew you should have kept your coveralls on. “You’re not even watching the show anymore.”

“Tough, you’re not moving anytime soon, with or without me.” You sighed. Orange was asleep on your shoulder (distracting, her face was so CLOSE to you), Yellow had wrapped his arms around you like a pillow (he was cold, but adorable with his cheek squished like that), and dang it, Green was out too. 

You sighed and conceded to your fate as a pillow.


	4. Am I the Alien on Another Planet?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter with a little character and world building. Don't worry, gore and smut will be on the way.

The species you were making a delivery to was called a Vasraci. They were quadruped and were in a symbiotic union with a species of delicate white fungi. The entire species had the appearance of eerily large, long limbed coyotes with short, human faces and delicate lace clothes that spiraled over their forms in perfect frilly rings. The clothes were made of fungi, and grew so large in some cases that the Vasraci looked engulfed in clouds. 

They had ordered crates of non-organic material sourced from the rich fields of a tier six death world on the outskirts of the milky way, sour gummy worms, and two shipments of the latest handheld gaming console. 

“Thank you for coming. We am excited to meet you. We are Gem.” All Vasraci used ‘we’ when referring to themselves, to honor the colonies they carried. 

“Thank you for welcoming our ship, my crew and I are excited to meet you as well, you can call me Red.” You shook their hand. Each of their four limbs ended in a six fingered humanoid hand, complete with an extra thumb. Shaking hands and feeling the extra appendage wrap around you was a bit strange, but you didn’t mind too much. 

“We am sorry to hear about the attack on the crew of your ship, are all of your members well?” 

“Yes, fortunately everyone was able to recover.” You smiled fondly at the thought of them. “They’re a reliable bunch.” you did not tell them that you were thinking about the fight that had occurred that morning, a heated debate on the merits of pancakes vs waffles. You ended up making both just to shut everyone up. 

“Ah.” they tilted their head “should we have extended invitations to your mates as well? We was not sure of your species to research how to best accommodate you."

“Oh you misunderstand.” you forced a smile. “We are just crewmates and friends.” They gave you a hard stare from behind the veil of lacy mushroom.

“We...see.” 

“Um-” you swallowed uncomfortably “would you like us to begin unloading the cargo? Our transport specialist can bring your order to any location within the landing complex.” 

“Ah yes” it seemed that they were equally as grateful for the change of topic “we would like the food items to be brought to room sixteen on the first floor and the consoles can be left here, we will distribute them directly.” 

“Thank you.” You unclip the walkie talkie from your belt. “Blue, if you could bring the food goods to room sixteen on the first floor and drop the electronics off of the landing pad. Over.” The walkie talkie crackled to life. 

“This is Yellow, Blue broke their walkie talkie already. Over.” You sighed and took a deep breath. 

“Yellow please relay the message to Blue.” 

“Already done Captain.” through the static you heard blue wail faintly, apologizing about the broken device. You turned the little radio off and hoped that the customer didn’t think you were too incompetent. You turned to apologize for the behavior of your team and were met with an amused looking Vasraci. You winced. At least they didn’t seem eager to take a complaint to corporate, you weren’t sure if Skeld was proactive about their workers rights and you hoped that you wouldn’t have to find out. 

“As per the contract, your ship will be refueled and you will be allowed to restock while on planet, there is a general goods store on the first floor. You will be responsible for bringing your goods to the ship yourself.” 

“What about medical supplies?” You had taken stock with Blacks help, and while you weren’t running low you would rather have a full cabinet in case something bad happened. 

“We stock basic supplies, bandages and such, I am afraid that we don’t stock anything species-specific.” You thanked them, your mind racing. You had actually put in a request for more supplies, and the company sent you back a long list of what they could and could not provide. They only provided ‘species specific’ materials for the crew, the rest all came out of the budget. 

Species specific materials were things like saline, blood bags, medication or antibiotics. Humans had a lot of species specific medical supplies, apparently most of your medicine was deadly poison, and was actually outlawed on other planets unless under the direct possession of a human, even coffee and tea were restricted because caffeine could kill over seventy percent of known species.

You had put in the order for more saline and fever reducers, everything else would come from the general store.

“That’s no problem, everything specific has to be special ordered anyway.”

“Then we will part here, you should get clearance for take off in about four hours. Will this be enough time for you to complete all your tasks?” 

“Yes, thank you for all your help.” you gave them one last, firm handshake and turned back toward your ship, forcing yourself to walk slowly even though you wanted to sprint up the walkway and stop Yellow from murdering Blue (something that was probably already happening).

You opened the door to the sound of yelling and intense laughter. 

“Guys?” 

“-those radios come out of the tech budget! Do you have any idea how expensive some of the replacement parts for this ship are? What if I need that money?” Yellow was chewing someone out. Occasionally using some nasty sounding words to get his point across. You rushed into the cafeteria, nearly convinced that there would be a dead body to bury. What you got was Purple, holding in her laughter so hard she was in tears. 

Next to her Orange and Black were doubled over and wheezing, even Green had broken into a smile, hiding his chuckles behind his hand.

“What is going on here?” Blue was backed against the wall, their hands held up and at the receiving end of a vicious tirade about breaking things that had to come out of someone else's budget. You frowned, it was a little excessive. Maybe you should step in. 

“Captain.” Purple wheezed at you from between her fits of laughter. “Captain look.” She held up a tablet. You peered closer and slapped your hand over your mouth to keep from dissolving into giggles. It was a picture of a chihuahua, growling furiously at a startled looking husky. 

You turned away again as the crew fell back into their mirth, pulling yourself together with difficulty. 

“Yellow!” you bit your lip to stop yourself from falling apart as he turned around and snarled at you.

“What!” He realized it was you and his face softened. “Oh, Captain!” 

“Sorry to interrupt, but I do need to borrow Blue.” Blue looked at you cheerfully, not threatened by Yellow's tirade so much as amused by it. 

“The shipment’s all ready to roll out captain!” 

“Then let’s go, we’ll stop by the store on the way back out here okay?” 

“Did you remember to put coffee on the list?” Black asked. Looking far too interested. You were pretty sure that he was going through caffeine withdrawal. 

“No, remember that’s a luxury human item, if you want to-”

“Actually there's room in the budget for it.” Orange was the accountant for the ship, she may have trained service dogs in the past, but she was amazingly financially literate. In her words ‘my taxes were a nightmare to file, I had to get pretty good with money’. You sighed, looking around. At the mention of coffee everyone had perked up. 

“Alright, I’ll put in an order.” The room erupted into cheers. 

“Come on Blue.” you waved them over and headed out of the room. “We gotta finish this delivery so we can pay for all that coffee.”

Blue was amazingly strong. You knew that since the first time you saw them move one of the tool cabinets on the ship. It still hit you hard when they picked up a crate that must have weighed over a hundred pounds with one hand and balanced it like a platter of tiny hors d'oeuvres.

“I guess you had to be in really good shape for your job.” they laughed, their eyes blue like the sky after a rainstorm. 

“Damn straight, if I couldn’t do the stunts I was screwed.” 

“What movies did you do?” 

“Well, one of my favorites was when I worked on this movie about an alien symbiote that takes over a journalist's body.” You choked.

“No way! You were a stunt double for Venom?” they laughed. 

“That's the one.” You watched them unload the last of the crates onto it’s shelf. “I uh-.” Blue suddenly froze, despite having stopped loading the crates, their breath didn’t start to ease. Instead, it got more intense. 

“Captain.” That was the only warning you got before they were lying on the ground, gasping for air. 

“Blue!” you rushed forward and hit your knees beside them, putting your fingers on their neck to take their pulse. It was thundering. 

They clutched at your hand. You held it tight, talking to them in the calmest tone you could muster as they swam between gasping for breath and pounding their free fist on the ground. It took almost fifteen minutes for them to calm down enough to talk to you properly. 

“Hey, can you hear me alright?” They nodded, pushing themselves up into a sitting position. 

“Yeah.” 

“Mind telling me what just happened?” They sighed.

“A panic attack, I get them sometimes.” you put a hand on their shoulder, peering into their sweaty face to check that their pupils were dilating properly. Their blonde hair was soaked, it curled when it got wet, clumping together and falling into their eyes. 

“Any idea what triggered it?”

“Yeah, I-I just realized that I don’t remember my name.” Oh, it had felt so normal to call everyone by their color. Somehow you hadn’t thought about your name since you set foot on the ship. You didn’t remember yours either. 

“Same here.” You felt surprisingly calm about it. “I think we all forgot that bit.” 

“Doesn’t that bother you!” You felt your brows pull together as you thought, squeezing their hand to offer what little comfort you could. 

“I think that...what’s most important is that we are finding a way to live in this new place, and even if we don’t know our names we know who we are. Does that make sense?” they laughed.

“A little bit Captain, you mean that we have to focus on what's right in front of us, and that a name is an inconsequential part of who you are so we aren’t losing anything that big. Right?” You nodded. 

“Well you put it a lot better than I did, you’ve got a way with words.” They were flushed red already, but you swore you saw it get deeper.

“I used to write on the side.” they could almost be described as bashful. 

“Don’t tell me you wrote some major motion film or something?” You were mostly teasing, but after the reveal that they worked on Venom you were ready to believe anything. 

“No, all indie stuff.” You grinned and slowly got to your feet. 

“Bet you were better than the top guys anyway.”

“I mean at least I wrote queer and poc representation.” 

“Yeah man, there's hardly any in some genres. What the fuck is up with that?” you both laughed together, it felt good. 

“Do you think we’ll ever get back there?” you bit your lip.

“I have no idea, but we’ll figure out what we are doing here, we may not know right now, but it will come with time.” They smiled at you, dazzling. They had very white teeth. 

“I don’t think I liked my old name that much anyway.”

You still worried about blue when they were walking back to the ship. You kept checking on them, resisting the urge to take their hand and intertwine your fingers. That would be weird, and highly inappropriate for a captain.

They insisted on carrying the groceries back from the general store, you had tried to fight it but they picked up all the bags at once and left none for you. 

Some human foods were banned for sale, but many were very popular on a galactic scale. 

You picked up pasta, candy, and chose from a very nice selection of mushrooms that were locally grown (no they were not the same kind that grew on the Vasraci). You had paid the amount agreed on the budget, then put the rest on your personal account. You could have probably spent a little less, but you picked up an extra bag of sour skittles (Blue’s favorite candy), took care to get the hair products that Purple requested, and bought blue-corn tortilla chips that were more expensive than the normal ones because Green had made a comment about them at dinner. In the end it put you over budget.   
Blue didn’t mention that you overspent as they picked up the bags, but they did raise an eyebrow when you were putting the groceries away and you handed them the bag of skittles with a hesitant smile. When everything was done, you still had two hours to burn. 

“Do you guys want to check out the planetary surface?” You thought it would be good for everyone to be out and under the sun...even if it wasn’t your sun.

“Are we allowed to do that?” Green asked, the others already standing and flocking towards the door. 

“Yeah, as long as we’re back by the time they finish refueling the ship, I can ask if someone’s available to show us around.” The others were already out the door, so you waved Green forward and walked beside him as you descended down the ramp. You suddenly realized that he must be the tallest on the ship, you had thought it was Black, but when you were standing right next to him you became aware of just how badly Green was hunched over. 

“You know, you should stop slouching so much, you’ll give yourself back problems.” He looked at you, startled. 

“I don’t slouch.” You felt your eyebrows creep toward your hairline. 

“Really? Roll your shoulders back.” He followed your instructions, suddenly four inches taller than he used to be. “See.” you grinned at him smugly. 

“Alright, maybe I slouch.” 

“You and the others have to be careful about that.” 

“The others?”

“Yeah, you all slouch and I know for a fact that Orange and Black are over six feet tall, the taller you are the more you have to pay attention to posture.” He reached out and hesitantly lay his arm across your shoulders. 

“Thanks for looking out for us Captain.” He gave you a brief squeeze, you expected him to let go, but he kept his arm balanced there. 

“Come on slow-pokes!” Purple waved at you, peeking her head around the corner at you. “Ooooh!” she exclaimed upon seeing you. “Guys! Green made a move on the Captain!” You glanced up at Green, he flushed with embarrassment. 

“Hey! I called first dibs.” Black yelled, smirking. You rolled your eyes. 

“Very funny guys.” A figure at the end of the hall caught your attention. A white flicker of motion. You flinched, remembering the phantom of the creature in the white suit tracking you down the halls of the ship. Green pulled you closer to him. You quickly recovered when you recognized Gem. “Oh, Gem!” 

“Hello Red.” it took you a moment to realize they were referring to you. Everyone had been calling you captain since you woke up. Gem looked serenely at the rest of the party. “Is this your crew?” 

“It is.” you smiled and patted where Green's arm had tightened around your shoulders. “Crew, this is Gem, our customer contact for this shipment delivery.”

“It is nice to meet you.” Blue stepped forward and shook their hand, everyone else following suit, with Green reluctantly detangling himself to take Gems hand. 

“We were hoping to see some of the planet's surface.” Gem smiled, they had a cute smile that turned their wide eyes into perfect half moons. It was the first time that you had seen them perk up since you arrived. 

“I would be glad to be your guide! The fields are in full bloom!” You smiled back. They sounded very excited about it. 

“Well we would love to see it!” You returned the same energy.

Gem took you through two tunnels and an airlock that was full of white mist. 

“It is a disinfectant spray, just in case.” you understood the necessity, and stayed in the room for a full five minuets just to be sure.

You stepped onto an alien planet for the first time. And your jaw almost hit the ground. 

“Oh.” The air was humid and heavy, but the sun was completely unencumbered. It was bright yellow, as your home sun was, and the sky was the same vivid blue.

The incredible thing was that the entire ground was blue too. A bright, pale blue, thousands of mushrooms almost a foot high covering every inch of exposed earth. The effect it had was staggering, the blue of the sky and ground merged together on the horizon, making it impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. 

You were in a perfect sphere of blue.

“It’s like we’re in a fishbowl.” Yellows said, eyes huge as he looked around. 

“Our planet is normally barren, you came at the right time, this bloom only happens for a short while each year.” a breeze ruffled the mushrooms, stirring up thick white mist that covered the fields. It looked like you were standing in the clouds. 

“Amazing.” you whispered. Reaching a hand out and waving it through what you assumed was the cloud of mushroom spores around your knees. It smelled like loose earth and decay, like springtime.  
“Would you like to walk farther, there is a path.” You grinned at Gem.

“We would love to!” Purple exclaimed, rushing to follow Gem further into the field. 

An arm slung itself around your shoulder, this time it was Black, looking smug. 

“So Captain, how did you manage to get us a free tour?” He teased. 

“You didn’t put out for it did you?” Yellow snarked. You laughed and gave him a gentle shove. 

“Stop that!” you blushed a little. The commotion caused Gem to look back at you, appearing concerned. You smiled at them, waving cheerfully. 

“How are you so good with people? Aren’t Vasraci normally solitary?” That had been in the report, but you didn’t pay much mind to it. 

“Sometimes people just need to be allowed to talk about what they like most to come out of their shell.” You looked forward at where Gem had stalled, eagerly waiting for the group to catch up (it was slow going, you had to carefully pick through the path, avoiding any stray mushrooms as best as you could). “These are beautiful Gem! What are they called?” 

You left later that day with a newfound knowledge of fungi, a full gas tank, and a small glass terrarium that held seven blue mushrooms. It would need occasional misting, and according to Gem it would bloom at the same time as the rest of it’s kind on the planet's surface. 

“You think that Gem had a crush on you Captain?” Orange was normally quiet, she seemed to hover at the edge of the pack, laughing at jokes, always listening for anything she could do for someone. She jumped at the chance to help with even the most mundane tasks and often preferred to figure things out on her own. So the fact that she came to you and asked her to help her learn to use a kitchen knife told you just how clueless she was about it. You were having her cut up the potatoes for team dinner. You had been pleasantly chatting about anime and it’s portrayal of women (both the good and the bad) before she finally asked the question that you could practically see swimming around in her head. 

“I don’t think so.” You continued basting butter over the cut of beef in the pan. Tonight was a special night, you were making a celebratory meal for your successful delivery (you also needed to use the steaks before they went bad). “I think they were just excited to talk about their interests.” 

“Did you like them?” 

“I thought they were nice once I got to know them a little, why?” 

“The others and I were talking-”

“Behind my back? Better watch out or I’ll have to write you up for insubordination.” you gave her a smile to let her know you were joking. 

“We were wondering what you did before?” You glanced at the doorway, you could have sworn you had seen the yellow of a sleeve cuff. 

“Are they listening?” Orange paused, hesitating one second too many. 

“No.” You rolled your eyes. 

“Come out guys!” they guiltily peaked their heads into the kitchen. “If you wanted to know, you could have just asked, you didn’t have to send Orange to the front lines like that.” you teased them, watching the sheepish expressions on their faces morph into something a little more light hearted. “So ask.” 

“What did you do before this?” Blue asked, straightforward. You decided to tease a little. 

“What do you think I did?” Blue pondered. 

“You were definitely someone that had to stay super calm, maybe a fireman or like, someone who works with kids?” 

“A teacher?” Green offered offered, sounding uncertain. 

“Nope.” You shook your head, trying to keep the smile off your face and failing miserably. 

“Were you a lawyer?” Yellow asked, sighing in relief when you shook your head. “Never trusted those bastards anyway.” Green frowned at him.

“I was in school to be a lawyer.” He said, sounding aghast. 

“Exactly.” Yellow bit back. 

"I think you could have been a chef." Orange said from her place, her hands still on the cutting board instead of chopping the potatoes into cubes like she was supposed to. "Your food is really good."

"Oh that's a good one, I mean your pancakes alone are to die for." Purple was staunchly on team pancake, and claimed that anyone who was on team waffle wasn't tasting the 'full flavor' of the batter (whatever that meant).

“We're getting distracted.” Black pulled everyone back to attention. “What did you do before we came here?” You grinned.

“I worked retail.” You put the cast iron pan in the oven. “Dinner in ten, do you mind setting the table?”


	5. Somethin’ funny's going on around here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shits gonna go down, hold onto our shorts. This is short but gosh dang it I was inspired.

You could have sworn that something had moved. You were in the team showers, staring at yourself in the mirror. Something had moved. 

You were sure of it, you had seen it flicker. There, in the upper left corner of the room...through the vent. 

Your heart dropped as you watched the metal grate opened and piece by piece that thing slithered out. It didn’t have any definitive shape besides a rough approximation of a humanoid. 

You were trying to move, but your hands were glued to the counter, your body locked in place. You tracked it helplessly, watching it through the mirror as it got closer. It was a mass of flesh, red under the scraps of white canvas. You were forced to watch as it stood behind you. 

The bone lance broke the mirror when it exited your body, but it wasn’t shattered enough to protect you from the sight of the thing absorbing you. You were forced to watch it oozing over your skin until it finally, mercifully closed over your eyes. 

You sat bolt upright at the sound of the ship-wide alarm going off, already out of bed by the time the others were groaning awake. 

You stumbled over to the control panel by the door, pressing the combination of buttons that you knew would turn on the artificial sunlight and turn off the dreadful beeping sound that was pre-programmed as the barracks alarm clock. 

“Good morning team.” your voice came out as a rasp. 

“It’s too early.” Purple whined from her cot, smashing a pillow over her face. 

“It is 08:00.”

“That’s too early!” She yelled, burying herself. You sighed and walked over to Yellow's bed, shaking his shoulder to wake him. He groaned and swatted at you. 

“Come On guys. The first reactor checks have to be done by nine.” there was no reaction, just more grumbles. 

You sighed and pulled on your coveralls. Grabbing the clipboard on your way out. They owed you for this. 

By the time one of the crew stumbled into the kitchen it was eight forty five. You had done the reactor checks and filled in the morning log. You were guessing it was the smell of your tomato, onion and goat cheese frittata that finally roused them. 

Orange was the first one in.

“Sorry I overslept Captain, are the-” she cut herself off to yawn. “Are the reactor checks done.” 

“Yeah, they won’t explode until tomorrow morning so I guess we’re okay for now.” You teased, slicing the third and last orange. “Here, breakfast.” She took a bite, her eyes going wide.

“Captain, this is really good!” 

“I’m glad you think so. Are the others up yet?” She nodded.

“They’ll be here in a second.”

“Well they better hurry.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I think they’ll want to hear the good news.” 

“There’s good news?” a bleary voice interrupted you from the doorway. It was Purple, her hair a mess. 

“Not this early in the morning.” Yellow said, stumbling into a chair and shoving a piece of frittata into his mouth. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” you smirked. “Because I got an email from corporate today, when we pick up our next shipment, we’ve been cleared to get our coffee order too.”

The room erupted into cheers. 

“This is SKELD craft A-0000156 requesting landing permissions.” The radio returned only static. 

“That was the third time.” you said, turning to Green. “Yellow confirmed our coms were working?” 

“Yup.” 

“And Purple confirmed that this is the right location?” 

“Yup.” You sighed. 

“I’m going to have to call SKELD aren't I?” you groaned and reached for your keypad. Just as you touched it though, the radio crackled to life. 

“This is SKELD Transfer station M-0615105, contacting the SKELD craft outside of our port docking bay. Do you copy?” you fumbled for the radio. 

“This is SKELD craft A-0000156, we copy.” 

“Sorry for the delay, what carrier class is your craft?” 

“Class Leviathan, strict cargo carry.” 

“We have you on the register, you will be free to land when the bay doors open.” 

“See you on deck.” 

“The same to you. Over and out.” the radio faded back into static. You turned to your crewmate.

“Well, that was weird, why didn’t they pick up before?” 

“Maybe they were having com troubles?” Green suggested. You let out a snort. Only stopping yourself from firing out a snide remark when the bay doors of the station began to open, a sliver of light slowly pouring into space. 

The actual transfer station was huge, it was the size of a skyscraper, miles of storage rooms on a ship that was so large that you couldn't see the end of it in any direction. 

The strange thing about it was that it was dark. Thousands of glass pane windows and none of them had a light in them. It was a chunk of metal outlined by the twinkle of distant stars. When you first got there you weren’t even sure if you were in the right place. 

You grabbed the intercom from where it was mounted in the wall. 

“Alright crew of our jolly old girl we have been cleared for landing, please make sure that all tray tables are down and all small objects are secure.” From down the hall, you heard Yellow scream at Blue. 

“I am not small! Put me down!” you bit your lip so hard it bled, reaching for the intercom again. 

“Whoever's small animal is making a racket back in the passenger cabin. We in the pilots seats ask you to kindly stow it under your chair and out of the aisle.” You offer the intercom to Green. He took it. 

“This is you co-pilot speaking, our Captain tried to let you off easy but I would like to remind the lady in navigation that she too counts as a small object and should be properly stowed for landing.” You gaped at him. “What?” 

“Yellow will threaten to kill you, Purple actually will.” 

“Green you better be running because I will make you a stain on the pavement!” Green bolted up from his seat and sprinted down the hall a moment before the door burst open. Purple had her hair down, thick black curls making a halo around her face, eyes alight with playful anger. “Where is he.” you focused on landing the ship. 

“I ain’t no snitch.” 

“Captain.” in the reflection of the window you saw her step closer. 

“Hey look I-” something on the landing pad caught your eye, no it wasn’t something on the landing pad, it was something above the landing pad. 

The transfer station had a landing bay, essentially a giant garage, and as you made it ease into it you were able to see something swinging from one of the catwalks. It was the lower half of a person in a SKELD branded uniform, dangling by a harness. Blood was still dripping from where they had been torn in half. 

“Shit!” you slammed the ship into reverse, her normal hum turning more frantic as you stopped your descent and began to retreat from what you now realized was a death trap. 

“What’s happening!” Purple was forced to sit on the ground as the motion jolted the whole ship. 

“Those aren’t our people on that ship!” You were almost completely out of the landing bay when you noticed something running toward you. It burst out of the airlock, literally. The airlock seemed to explode as it was torn off and thrown aside by something that moved at the speed of a bullet train. 

It was coming at you on all fours, tears in it’s suit showing red, bulbous flesh underneath. 

“Captain!” Green returned. “Shit!” you heard him curse, then take the seat beside you in the helm. He grabbed the intercom. “All crew secure yourselves, this is not a drill, we have a hostile in pursuit.” he was almost immediately on the phone to corporate. “They put me on hold?”

You didn’t have time to unpack that, finally getting enough clearance to put some real gas on the throttle, shooting backwards toward the stars and reducing your pursuer to a tiny dot on the deck. It threw its head back, bone spurs shooting out of its body in every direction. Like a rapidly morphing sea urchin. You ease off of the throttle, coming to a stop far from the deck. 

“Green, are you still on hold?” You were panting, the adrenaline made you feel like you had just finished a race.

“Yes.” 

“Let me know when that changes.” You grabbed the intercom. “Crew, please retrieve your atmospheric suits. We will be conducting an integrity check of the ship.” You began to pull away, determined to get out of dodge. Green nudged you. 

“They're on.” He handed the phone to you. You whispered thanks. 

“This is the Captain speaking.” 

“This is officer Rolly, I am the head of security for the sector. We were informed that you were under attack. What’s the situation?” You looked down at the landing pad, where that thing was still convulsing through shapes. 

“We arrived at transfer station M-1615105 to apparent radio silence, when we were finally contacted and given clearance to land we noticed a...a crew member was deceased in the hanger and retreated with a hostile in pursuit, we plan to proceed to another transfer station.” 

“Negative, please do not leave the scene.” You clenched your fists, mouthing ‘they told us to stay here!’ to Green. You were furious. 

“Hostiles are still in the area, please give permission to retreat.” 

“Negative, please remain at the scene.” They sounded uncomfortable through the phone. 

“Officer, it is my primary responsibility as captain of this craft to ensure the safety of my crew. I will not put them in danger by staying here.” 

“Captain please do not leave-”

“Look out!” you shouted, cutting them off mid-sentence and tackling Green to the ground. The thing on the landing pad had stopped morphing and had jumped toward the cockpit window. The ship jolted, but the shattering glass that you expected never happened. You scrambled back to your feet. 

It was floating in space, body riddled with holes. Floating back toward the transfer station and twitching. You fumbled for the phone.

“-captain, do you copy.” 

“I copy.” 

“Captain! What happened.” 

“Hostile attacked the ship, it was...deflected. Injured but not dead. We are retreating.” 

“Affirmative, please retreat. How many deaths can you confirm on transfer station M-0615105?” You took a deep breath and urged the engines forward. 

“Confirmed? Just one seen in the landing bay.” 

“And how many deaths do you predict?” 

“How many predicted deaths?” You looked at the information sheet for the transfer station. “One thousand and seventy five.” There was a pause on the other end. 

“Captain, that is the total crew count for transfer station M-0615105.”

“I know.” 


	6. Corporate is a bunch of assholes no matter what universe you’re in.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew arrives at the next transfer station over, things don't go to plan.

You were tethered to the top of your ship, walking the rail. The clip on the end of your harness fastened to a strip of metal that ran down the length of the ship's side, in zero gravity it was an easy jaunt even with the weight of your space suit.

You inspected every inch of the metal hull, looking for tears, dents, anything that threatened the integrity of the ship.

You were on-route to the next available transfer station, but first and foremost on your list of concerns was an atmosphere leak caused by the impact. You had dreamed of being an astronaut as a kid (who hadn’t) but you never thought you would see the day where you were walking along the side of your own ship, nothing but emptiness separating you from the endlessness of space. The stars looked so different than they had on earth, they were multicolored, rainbow instead of the cool white that you were able to see through the atmosphere.

“All clear on the port side Captain.” Blues voice crackled through the radio headset.

“All clear on the starboard too. Good job, let’s head on in.” You could feel the vibration of the cuff attached to the rail as it scraped across the metal, it was strange, just a slight buzz through the heavy atmosphere suit.

You and Blue slipped into the airlock, waiting for the pressure to equalize.

The atmosphere suits that you wore were the ones that you first woke in, outfitted to withstand a complete vacuum and weighed over fifty pounds.

“Let me get that for you Captain.” Blue reached forward and pulled off your helmet, fresh air cooling the sweat on your face.

“Thanks Blue.” you wiped your hand across your head. “It was getting stuffy in there.” Their hair was doing that thing again, it curled when it was damp.

“I can relate.” They reached out and stroked a gloved hand down your flushed neck. The undersuit you had to wear under the bulk of the exterior layer was red, skintight, and nestled all the way up to the line of your jaw. “You know, that undersuit looks really good on you.” You snorted.

“As if you weren't making everyone drool in yours.” You had gotten a quick glance at them before they pulled on the bulky exo-suit.

They looked incredible in the skin tight, blue spandex. Their thighs were the best you had ever seen, hands down. Thick, muscular, attached to a great butt and calves that were proportional (which was very impressive considering how positively juicy their thighs looked).

You felt blood rush to your face. That was a very inappropriate thought for a captain to have.

“Everyone? Even you?” They gave you that sunshine smile. Cheeky, without malice.

“Don’t flatter yourself, that’s against company policy.”

“That wasn’t a no.” they sing-songed at you.

“Wasn’t a yes either.” The airlock opened and you shuffled out, eager to get out of the layers that were required to wear the suit.

“Captain.” Yellow pulled you aside as you tried to make your way to the locker rooms.

“Ah, did you manage to recover that footage I asked you for?” You had asked him to retrieve the video logs for the ship when it was attacked, they might be needed for a damage report (though now you knew that there was no damage to the ship), and you wanted to review them.

“Did you ever doubt me?” He smirked, you noticed faintly that he was starting to lose some of the pallor he had before. He looked...healthier, his olive skin brighter, his dark circles a little less pronounced. He had the front of his hair flipped up and held with a clip.

“Never.” you had complete faith in your crew.

“As it should be.” He handed you a tablet. “There’s three views; radio tower, helm window and undercarriage.”

“Wow, I am glad to have you on my team.” you gave him a one armed hug.

“Not like I had a choice.” He scoffed, but he raised his hand to grip onto yours. Intertwining your fingers. “I guess it isn’t the worst thing that could have happened.”

“Getting cozy with the captain there Yellow?” Blue was coming back from changing into their casuals. “Nice.” Yellow scoffed.

“Like you weren’t doing the same in the airlock.”

“Sounds to me like you're jealous.” you teased, smirking at Yellow.

“I am not!” You let go of him as he swatted at you, in good spirits despite his front of annoyance.

You chuckled and resumed your trek to the lockers, tablet safely tucked under your arm.

Play, pause, rewind, repeat. It was three frames of video, just three tiny frames, yet you were fixated on it.

“What are you looking at?” Purple lay her head on your shoulder. Her soft, bouncy curls brushing your jaw. “That’s the footage from yesterday right?”

“Yeah, I was just looking it over.”

“You’ve been rewatching the same two seconds of footage for ten minuets.” you jolted as you realized that Orange was there too, hovering at your other side.

“I can’t hide anything from you can I?” a little bit of admiration crept into your voice.

“I’m observant.” she grinned at you, crooked. Since you had stopped on Vasraci she had gotten even more freckled, they were cinnamon-colored and lead from the crown of her head all the way into the collar of her uniform. Even her hands were freckled up to the tips of her long fingers.

“Come-on captain, tell us what’s got you rewinding that.” Purple squeezed your shoulder, she smelled really nice, like the soap you bought her. You caved, rewinding the footage (once again).

You pointed to where the creature could be seen overshooting the cockpit window and hitting something just off screen. There was a flash of the shields, but through the bright light there was a flicker at the corner of the screen.

“There, right after it rebounds.”

As the creature flew away from the ship you could see something, reddish and whip like. It followed the body, almost like it was pushing that thing away.

“A wire?” Purple suggested.

“No, there wasn’t any damage to the radio array.”

“Maybe one of those things tendrils?” you shook your head.

“Wrong color.” It was more of a...pale red, too light.

“It could be a glitch in the screen.” Orange took the tablet from you. “When that thing hit the shields it jostled the whole exterior electrical system.”

“I don’t think it is.” you chewed your lip. “What if that thing wasn’t repealed by just the shields?”

“What are you getting at?” Orange was looking concerned too.

What were you getting at? That was a good question. You were getting at the idea that one predator had encroached on another's hunting ground. A territorial dispute. Your mind kept seeing the creature's body superimposed with your own, the damage it had taken was too similar to the silver round in your side to avoid drawing the connection.

It sounded crazy even to you.

“Nothing, just covering every possibility.” Orange frowned.

“Captain, how much sleep have you been getting?” You startled.

“What? Plenty, why do you ask?” you really had been getting seven to eight hours a night.

“Paranoia is a common symptom of sleep deprivation.” she put her hand on your free shoulder “maybe we should go see Black.” You shrugged off the touch.

“There's being paranoid and then there’s being careful.” You were right on the edge between the two at the moment (not that you would admit it). “Right now the ship has no damage, the atmosphere and oxygen levels are stable, and the reactors are running smoothly, I just want to do everything I can to keep it that way.” Purple shifted from her spot on your shoulder.

“Hey, what did corporate say?”

“Corporate?” you felt your face scrunch in confusion.

“Yeah, you just got an email from them.” she poked the monitor, an urgent notification was flashing on the screen.

“Purple, I haven't checked it yet.” You resisted the smile creeping up on your face.

“Oh, right. Sorry I just got done with the navigation calculations. Brain go brrrr.” She was chewing bubblegum, snuggling into your back. Dang it she had boobs, you flushed and reminded yourself once again that those were very inappropriate things for a captain to be thinking about their crew.

“You’re already done with those?” The navigation calculations were mind boggling, you had to take into account everything from the impact of cosmic dust on the craft to the distance between yourself and major planets. Any high speed travel needed that information to stop you from crashing.

“Mmmhm, they weren’t super hard.” Not super hard your left foot.

“Purple, has anyone ever told you you’re a genius?”

“Not often enough.” you couldn’t see her face but she sounded cheeky.

“I’ll be sure to do it more often.”

You opened the email from corporate and swore.

“An interview?” The team had gathered around your computer, staring at the monitor. They all seemed wary, but Green was particularly indignant. “What gave them the right to call you in for an interview?”

“Company policy dictates that there must be a mediator available for any questioning, and I don’t see any contact information.” Orange and Green had practically pushed you out of the way and taken over your desk, scanning over the email and seething.

“Guys it’s just questioning about what happened at the transfer station.” Orange spun around and pointed a finger at your chest.

“You don’t really believe that, stop trying to comfort us.” she was back to the screen in whirl of motion.

“I’m looking up the transfer station records, we can find the mediator through that.” Green began typing, completely taking over your seat. You sighed.

“I’m gonna start dinner.”

Homemade macaroni and cheese was (in your opinion) the supreme comfort dish. The secret was to include three times the cheese that you thought you needed, and a little breadcrumb with Italian seasoning for the top didn’t hurt either. You did make some roasted broccoli and cauliflower for the side, but you doubted anyone would actually eat it. By the time dinner was ready you felt drained half to hell. You had run every possible outcome of your meeting with corporate through your head, none of them turned out well.

You had allowed your crew to be attacked twice in the time they had been under your command, and it had only been two weeks!

What kind of a captain put their crew in danger like that?

A real shit one.

“Hey captain?” Purple was standing in the doorway, watching as you stirred macaroni into your cheese sauce a bit too aggressively.

“Yeah? Dinner will be ready in ten if that was your question.” You tried to smile, but it came out wrong.

“I’m going to hug you now.” Purple took a few steps across the kitchen and threw herself into your arms. You nearly dropped the spoon.

“Hey, not that I’m complaining, but what brought this on?” Purple sighed and wrapped her arms more snugly around your waist.

“Orange already told you captain, you don’t have to lie to make us feel better.” You stared at a stain on the kitchen floor, you just...you really didn’t want to leave them. You hugged her back, inhaling the smell of soap and residual bubblegum. “We won’t let them take you from us captain, Green and Orange are on a warpath, we’ll be ready by the time we get to the next transfer station.”

“You could get fired.”

“Then we’ll get fired, you’re our captain, we aren’t letting them take you away.”

Your eyes did not feel wet. And if they did, it was not because you were tearing up.

“Ten minutes to arrival, captain.” You felt a lot better after last night, a movie with the crew and a good night's sleep changed a lot, including your perspective on the approaching meeting.

“Thank you, throttling down now.” You picked up the intercom.

“Yellow, what is the status on radio?”

“Ready.” His voice sounded strangely choked, you wondered if you should check on him once you arrived.

“You okay back there Yellow?”

“J-Just fine captain.” You returned the intercom to it’s cradle.

“Do you think I should have him see Black after we contact the station?” You looked over to where Green was reviewing the results of Purples calculations.

“He’ll be fine.” he gave you an uncomfortable smile that came off as more of a grimace. You shrugged and lapsed back into comfortable silence that lasted until you pulled up to the transfer station.

This time, the station was lit up like a Christmas tree, lights twinkled from it’s windows and painted a swath of space in a warm pattern.

You reached for the radio, but it crackle to life before you could touch it.

“This is Skeld Transfer station M-0615104 contacting the craft approaching our port side, what is your designation?”

“This is Skeld craft A-0000156, requesting landing permissions.” there was a pause on the other side of the line.

“I see you on the roster, you are the craft that was witness to station M-0615105 correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Is this the captain speaking?”

“...Yes.” you glanced at Green worriedly.

“Captain, we ask you to hold your ship stationary for tethering to the transfer station.”

“Tethering to the station? We were told we would have landing clearance here.” The person on the other end sighed. Dropping the official tone.

“Someone ordered a ship quarantine of three days, you still have twenty-four hours before you’re allowed to land.” You groaned, as if the two days it took to get here weren’t enough.

“My crew isn’t going to be happy with that one, they’ve been eager to get their hands on that coffee ration I promised them at the last transfer station.” the voice on the other side of the phone laughed.

“They must be unbearable, how do you stand it.” you grinned.

“Same way they deal with me I think, were you cargo crew by any chance?”

“Did five years on transport, took this job because they called it a promotion. Worst decision I’ve ever made.” You laughed.

“Well, seeing as you’re promoted now, what do you say to helping out some of your old peers?”

When you got off the phone you stretched leisurely, crossing your arms and lounging in your chair.

“Guess what I just did.” you said to Green.

“Something good? I don’t know, I only caught half of the conversation.” He glanced up from his monitor. “You look far too pleased with yourself.”

“They're sending a capsule out with the tether.” you twisted in your swivel chair. “Guess what’s in it?” He perked up.

“Coffee?”

“And baking goods. I’ll tell you what, if I’m not fired tomorrow I’m making a cake.”

“an...I survived corporate cake?” You pointed at him, your bad mood completely gone.

“An I survived corporate cake! Now you’re talking!” You stood from your chair, invigorated.

“I’m gonna go get Blue, they gotta start prep for tethering.” Green scrambled away from the computer.

“Maybe you should just use the intercom!” He called after you.

“Why?” You brushed off his suggestion and walked down the hall, already planning your cake, whether it would say ‘I survived corporate’ or ‘I just got fired’ was still up in the air.

“Blue?” you poked your head into the storage room “Blue, did you hear about the tether?” there was no answer.

“Hey Orange?” You called her over from where she was in communications, still researching for your meeting tomorrow. It was all a bunch of unreadable jargon to you.

“Yes captain?”

“Have you seen Blue?” She turned away, the tips of her ears turning red.

“Uh, I think they headed down toward the reactors.” The reactors?

“Was there something wrong with them in the diagnostics this morning?”

“Ummm, I’m not sure.” You shrugged and continued your search. In a stroke of luck, Blue was coming out of electrical just as you started to pass the door.

“Just who I was looking for.” You waved them down.

“Hey, what can I do for you captain!”

“Did you hear that they're sending over a tether team?”

“A tether team? Why would they do that?”

“We have a three day quarantine because of the attack, do you think you could get the cable ports ready in the next hour?”

“I can do it in thirty.” you frowned.

“Don’t push yourself okay? Those cables weigh a lot.” They grinned at you.

“Don’t worry captain, I’m all warmed up!” they practically skipped down the hall. You shrugged, everyone seemed to be in good spirits, things were really looking up.

You headed off to prepare the starboard airlock for the capsule.

Standing in front of the window in the cafeteria made you think. About the team, about yourself, about how you were traveling through space like you had dreamed about while staring at pictures that the Hubble telescope took. It made you think about how all of it was overwhelming.

You felt...like nothing was real, like your head was splitting open, like the stars outside the window were tiny eyes, watching you.

Actually, a few of the stars looked like they weren’t stars at all. They closer resembled pieces of white, barren ash from a campfire. You peered closer, angling yourself so that you could see the side of the ship through the window.

You recoiled. The side of the ship was on fire, flames licking out from the oxygen rich environment of the tunnels, exposing the insulation panels.

You had to get to the others, to the team. You had to get them in their atmospheric suits so that you could cut the oxygen and extinguish the fire.

You took one step back, and the window of the ship exploded outward, the vacuum sucking you into space.

It threw you into circles and cut your throat, that terrible, all consuming silence returning. You knew it was useless, but you flailed, trying to right yourself and find the ship again. It was all a blur, stars melding together, bright points of flame millions of miles away. You were almost grateful when something hit you, stopping your spin.

Your body flared with pain, it hurt so badly that your vision flashed, going out for a moment. It was only a moment, but in the time between when you went blind and your sight came back you found yourself back in the same situation as the last time you were in open space.

Your hands trembled as they raised to the hole in your side. As you watched the bone seemed to pulse, blood gushing around it as it moved. It grew larger, until it was tight, sealing the wound and sticking you securely to the creature.

You were like a fish on a harpoon, limp as it reeled you in, closer to its mass of mouths and flesh. It formed a humanoid shape as you approached, taking you almost tenderly in what would have been its arms.

All of its mouths smiled, showing off sharp teeth in rows like a shark. It placed a hand on your stomach, tracing around where it had you skewered. It was so gentle, its thumbs pressing into the space around where you were caught. Your pajamas stuck like a second skin under its touch.

In one motion, it ripped the bone out of your body. Sending blood and chunks of your guts spraying out, splattering against the form it had made for itself. It placed its fingers, humanoid but too long, along your jaw, delicately holding your neck.

You were thankful you could no longer feel anything as it stuck your head in it’s mouth.

You woke up shaking and sweating, tearing the blanket away and pressing your palms under your shirt, flat to the round of silver skin. It was smoother than the rest of your body, perfectly hairless.

Your hands trembled as you got out of bed, still pressing into your flesh like you had to keep your intestines in. You stumbled to the bathroom, pulling your soft top all the way over your head and throwing it into one of the sinks.

It was red, you couldn’t handle seeing that color. Your hands were shaking as you touched your side.

There was no blood, just silver skin.

“Captain?” One of the worst things about sharing a barrack was that anyone could wake up when you did.

Your rough awakening didn’t go unnoticed. You clenched your hands into fists and tried to pull yourself together.

“Yeah? Did you guys need anything?”

“Were here to make sure you’re okay Captain.” Green walked into the bathroom. Behind him, Yellow followed.

“You guys should be asleep.” Green stepped forward with a blanket in his hands, draping it over your shoulders.

“So should you.”

“Do you want to tell us what happened?” Yellow asked, for once speaking softly.

“No.” They shared a glance.

“Then come with us.” Yellow tilted his head in the direction of the door. “Black’s in the kitchen making cocoa.”

“Cocoa? When did the chocolate powder come in?” You had special ordered it, it was too high in caffeine to get normally.

“Captain.” Green took your elbows and forced you to look him in the eyes. “It came in today, you and I unloaded it together.” You put a hand to your head, you didn’t remember anything that you did that day.

“Oh, I remember now, sorry it must have slipped my mind.” You looked down at your feet, but snapped back to attention when you realized that they had said Black was in the kitchen, attempting to make something. “Wait! Black’s cooking!”

“Trying to at least.” Yellow snarked from the door. “And if we don’t get over there he’s probably going to burn down the kitchen!” that earned a chuckle from you.

“Yeah, let’s go.” you followed him out the door. Green held the edge of the blanket off the floor as you made your way to the kitchen, making you feel like you were wearing a cape.

“You should wait on the couch.” Green tried to usher you into the cafeteria, but you breezed right past him and into the kitchen.

“If I waited outside, who would stop Black from burning down the ship.” Sure enough, Black was stirring a pot over the stove, a towel a little too close to the burner for comfort. “That’s on too high.” You draped your blanket over a chair and reached around him to turn the dial down, accidentally bumping your hips into his butt.

“Wow Captain, if you wanted to get up close and personal all you had to do was ask.” You sighed and withdrew.

“Not like there's much to get up close and personal with.” Black was very lean.

“Did you just call my butt flat?!” You smirked.

“Maybe.”

“Still cute though isn’t it?”

“Maybe.” It was actually a very cute butt, it was firm and always looked nice in his casuals.

“Aww come on Captain.” his black eyes narrowed playfully “I won’t report you to corporate if you just admit it.”

“Now you really are burning that.” Sure enough, the pot was boiling over and spilling milk on the stove. It was starting to smoke. You gently moved him aside and took the pot off the heat, stirring to cool it.

“You know, the whole point of this was to give you a chance to relax.” Yellow said, crossing his arms.

“I’ll rest once the cocoas are done. I don’t need you burning down my ship.”

“Oh so it’s your ship now?” Black rested his hands on your shoulders and kneaded into the stiff muscles. It surprised you enough for you to let out a tiny, unintentional groan. Blacks hands paused, but then his long (admittedly talented) fingers got back to work. “What happened to ‘I’m not the captain’?” you knew he was teasing, but in the moment the only answer you had wasn’t a flirty comeback or a clever jab, it was something genuine.

“I don’t mind being captain for you guys.” you muttered, tasting the cocoa and stirring some sugar into the pot. Blacks hands went slack on your shoulders, allowing you to duck under his hold and get a few mugs. “Hot chocolate is served.”

“Captain.” Green took his mug from the counter and took your hand, squeezing it. His hair was down from it’s normal braid, it was longer than it looked, falling well past his shoulders. “There’s no one else we would rather have show us the stars.” A trickle of something molten made its way into your core.

“Well geez, we have a poet here.” Yellow dumped cinnamon into his cocoa.

“You agree with him.” Black teased.

“Yeah, I do.” Yellow looked away, blushing.

You moved to put the pots into the sink.

“I’ll do that.” Green snatched the dirty dishes from your hands. “You go out to the couch.” Before you could protest Yellow was grabbing your hand, dragging you along.

“Not a word of complaint out of you.” He threatened, leading you to the couch and pushing you into the throne of pillows that had taken up residence on your couch. You almost splashed your cocoa when he leapt into the pile beside you, slipping under your arm and pressing his ear to your chest, still bare from when you tore your top off in the bathroom.

“You’re cold.” you said, running a hand through his hair, it was bouncy.

“You’re just hot.” You laughed.

“You really think I’m hot?” He punched you, lightly.

“Shut up.”

“You know-” Black vaulted over the back of the couch, landing on your other side and once again causing your drink to jostle. “This is supposed to be relaxing.”

“Nothing about you guys is relaxing.” you snarked, taking a sip of your hot chocolate and nearly scalding your mouth.

“Except when we leave.” Black gave a shit eating grin when you shot him a glare. His smile fell as he looked at you, and he lifted a nimble-fingered hand to stroke your cheek.

He kissed your forehead, his lips cool. You were pretty sure your heart had migrated into your mouth, if you wanted to you could have chewed on it.

“Hey.” His voice was an octave deeper than normal.

“Hey.”

“Green told me about what happened in the bathroom, he said you forgot what you did today.” You sighed.

“Yeah I- it just blurred together.”

“Did you hit your head?” He pulled down your eyelid and shined a tiny flashlight into your face. Where did he even get that?

“No.”

“Has this happened often?”

“No, well I think it happened once.”

“When?”

“I don’t know, maybe the day after we left the Vasraci?” It wasn’t like the whole day was gone, you remembered waking up and making breakfast, but everything got a little fuzzy around mid-day.

“Why didn’t you come to the med bay?” You were forced to face him, he looked so worried. Guilt panged in your chest.

“I didn’t even notice until you brought it up.” Green snorted, he had entered the room with your discarded blanket and tossed it over your lap.

“Captain, you have more to think about than yourself. What are we supposed to do if you get sick?” He said.

“We would probably starve.” Yellow responded, glaring at where Green hovered around the couch. “Stop fidgeting and get in here.” Yellow grabbed him and yanked him into the pile, once again you jostled your cocoa.

He settled on the opposite side of Black, pushing Yellow into your lap. You ended up wrapped up in a tangle of limbs. Yellow and Black were both wiry, but Green had just enough meat on his shoulder to make a decent pillow.

“Captain?” You looked up at Green, an expression that you were sure was a thread away from breaking on your face.

“Yeah?”

“What happened tonight.” You made to answer, but found yourself choking instead. You rubbed a hand over your face.

“Nightmares, I don’t want to talk about it.” A touch to your stomach made you flinch. Yellow had rested his fingertips on the puncture wound. He was silent, but it was soothing. It was a friendly touch in a place that had forgotten what that felt like.

“You beat that thing captain, it’s not coming back.” You tilted your head against the back of the couch. You certainly hoped that was the case, but if it was, then why did you have this sinking feeling in your chest.

“What’s for breakfast captain?” Purple walked into the kitchen, a smile on her face.

The crew was a lot easier to get up with a fresh cup of coffee as a motivator. Orange took hers black, Yellow took his with one sugar, Green liked a good latte, Blue preferred cream and sugar with a hint of coffee, Purple worried you with the amount of honey she put in hers and Black put a spoonful of cocoa powder, a dash of cinnamon, and a splash of milk into his (which turned out really good).

“French toast.” Nothing went together better than a happy crew, coffee, and French toast. You could have done without the big meeting looming over your head, but three out of four wasn’t so bad.

“Do you have that good syrup from last time?” Before stepping foot on the ship Purple had never before had real maple syrup, the kind that came from trees and not dyed high fructose corn syrup. You refused to have any other kind in your kitchen.

“Sure do.” You slid the jug across to her.

“You made whipped cream?” Black appeared at your side, causing you to jump slightly. He reached around you, grabbing the bowl that you had hand whipped before he managed to drag himself out of bed. He brushed his hips against your butt, a little too firmly for it to be an accident.

“If you wanted to get up close and personal with me,” you began, voice dry. “All you had to do was ask.” Black was not swayed, he hummed and pressed his other hand to the counter, bracketing you with his arms and pressing himself flush to your back. You startled, suddenly completely trapped.

“Consider this me asking then.” You stuck a finger into the bowl of whipped cream and swiped it over his nose. He retreated, and you took the momentary distraction to duck under his arm and flip the pieces of toast that were about to burn.

“Very funny, sit down and eat your breakfast, I know you skip lunch most of the time so I expect you to have two slices.” He looked at you in shock, then his eyes narrowed and a sly grin spread across his face.

He gave a mock salute.

“Yes captain.” the teasing bastard dropped his voice down and purred.

You felt a few of the gears in your brain grind to a halt. Literally coming to a hard stop in the middle of the kitchen with your eyes wide and your face on fire. You only managed to pull yourself out of it when you realized that you had forgotten to put the berries on the table.

You rushed to finish serving breakfast, avoiding eye contact because if you so much as looked at him you would start to think some very inappropriate thoughts for a captain to be having about their crew.

“We dock in an hour, eat up.” You said, eyes fixed firmly on the counter.

“Captain! Come sit with me!” You looked up to where Blue was eating their third serving of peanut butter and berry French toast (they could shovel down food only second to Orange).

“Alright.”

For once, landing went smoothly. You touched down in the hanger just as the crew of the transfer station was letting out from their first meal, you actually attracted quite a crowd as the ramp descended.

“Blue! What’s the status on tethers?” The ship was further secured to your landing space with cables, part of Blues job was securing your ship to the pad so that it didn’t slide with the pitch of the station.

“One left captain!” You took note of that and began a slow walk around the circumference of the ship, checking each fastener for tension. By the time you got all the way around Blue had finished attaching the last tether and was talking to some of the transfer station crew.

“Oh, Captain.” Blue waved you over to the little crowd they had collected. “Come over here!” You shrugged and made our way over.

“Hello.” you offered your hand to one of the crew members. “I’m Red.”

“You’re the captain of this craft?”

“And all of her crew, what can I do for you?” The man didn’t let go of your hand, still eagerly shaking it.

“Is this really an A series craft?” You laughed, startled by the question.

“She sure is, A-0000156.”

“That's a low serial number too!” He finally let go of your hand, gawking at your ship. “She's an original!” The crowd chattered excitedly.

“You’ve never seen an A series before?”

“Never, we thought they were out of commission by now.” You felt a surge of protectiveness for your ship. Looking around the hangar, she did appear to be a little less...sleek than her newer siblings, but you would be damned if someone tried to tell you that she was worse for it.

“She won’t be out of commission for a good while yet, she may be old but she's sturdy.” he grinned at you.

“How do you repair it?”

“We wouldn’t have to if some people stopped breaking things.” Yellow appeared at your side, his tongue as sharp as always. Behind him, the rest of the crew trickled out and came to stand beside you.

“Wow.” the transfer station crew stared at the group of you, stunned. “Do all A-series crews look like you?” You glanced around, not quite sure what he meant.

“No other is quite as sexy.” Black winked at the transfer station workers, ignoring your reprimanding glare.

“Black, flirt off the books.”

“You have no complaints when you’re at the receiving end, is someone jealous?”

“I will write you up for harassment.”

“No you won’t.” you couldn’t resist the slow smile that spread across your face.

“Don’t tempt me.” The transfer station crew looked eager. Catching onto the infectious energy.

“Any chance that we could have a tour?” You crossed your arms.

“Unfortunately we have some business to attend to, we won’t be available for a few hours at least.”

“We can come back tonight.” The entire group seemed ready to hang onto your words.

“Well that would really be up to the crew, it’s their ship too.” You looked around at the group, your heart dropping when you realized that they were all beginning to smirk deviously.

“The tour starts at six.” Purple said, a smile on her face. “Dinner will be at seven, captain is making Italian.” Fuck, you should have kept your mouth shut.

One thing was true across all universes. Corporate offices sucked. You and your team currently sat across from a man that clearly thought far too much of himself, he wore a pressed suit, shined the plaque outside of his office that read ‘Segment Manager Terall’ until it was blinding, and had made you wait almost forty-five minutes past the agreed meeting time before he finally had his secretary invite you in, presumably too busy to greet you himself.

“Which one of you is the captain?” even the tone of his voice reminded you too heavily of being chewed out by managers for not being able to pick up your third five hour shift in a row.

“I am, it’s nice to meet you.” He did not take your hand when you offered it to him.

“Captain do you know why you’re here today.”

“I was told you have questions about the incident at the transfer station.” He stepped his hands, leaning forward. You wished he wouldn’t, he smelled like tic-tacs.

“Yes, it was supposed to be just you, your team can remove themselves from the premises.” He didn’t even bother to look at you.

“Actually.” You had never heard Oranges' voice sound so harsh. “According to your own policy you can not question a crew member alone.” He looked up at her sharply.

“Young lady, I would suggest that you comply with my request, for your own sake.” He began to rise from his chair, but was shut down when he came face to face with Oranges imposing stature. He wouldn’t do very well intimidating her, especially when she was backed by six other people that looked ready to kill him if he was to take another step.

“Is that a threat? All of us are witnesses to it.” Orange leaned farther into his space, forcing him to slowly lower himself back into his chair. He painted on a tight smile.

“No threats, just a suggestion.” He chose not to challenge her again, presumably dropping his attempt to get you alone in the face of such staunch resistance. Instead he returned to addressing you directly. “Captain I would like to know exactly what happened three days ago.”

“Four days ago.”

“Excuse me?”

“The tragedy aboard M-0615105 happened four days ago.” He should know, he was likely the one that placed your crew under the three day quarantine. He sighed.

“What happened four days ago then?”

“We wrote and submitted a full security report, was that not enough?” He looked at you, cold and calculating. You could tell that he had already read your report forwards and backwards.

“You did submit a report didn’t you, in fact, I was reviewing your report the other day, and while doing so I couldn’t help but notice that you came under attack by one entity. Is that true? Was there only one?”

“There was only one that directly attacked us, we never landed or boarded the transfer station to confirm that there were more.”

“Then why was it that you reported a total station kill? A station full of people, one thousand and seventy five if I recall, is an awful lot to assume dead.” You took a deep breath, he was trying to rile you up, and if you wanted to get out of this alive you couldn’t let him succeed.

“The creature that attacked us ripped off one of the main bay airlocks. There was no depressurization from the atmosphere leaving the craft and we hadn’t received any distress signal. If someone was left alive on that ship then they would have sent one out. Transfer station M-0615105 was dead in the water before we got there.”

“How convenient for you.” You lay a hand on Yellows arm, you could see him tensing in his chair.

“I don’t know what you think you’re implying.” You said.

“Well Red, may I call you Red?” He did not wait for your response. “I just think that it is very convenient that you were so eager to retreat from a scene with only one hostile, a hostile that, according to your own words, was heavily injured from impacting your shields.”

“We didn’t know for sure that there was only one hostile.”

“And you didn’t know for sure that every crew member on M-0615105 was dead. Yet, there was no attempt to remain on the scene for potential rescue.”

“There would have been no chance at rescue if more of those things were on the ship.” He dragged a pad of papers across his desk.

“Do you know what happened once you left the scene? Once the security fleet arrived.”

“I wasn’t able to retrieve the official report when I requested it, so no.”

“Which was a violation of our ships rights as an involved party to an ongoing investigation.” Green interrupted the conversation.

“Not when the involved party is a suspect.” The room went deathly silent.

“What?” Green stood to his full height, sending his chair skidding backwards. “You can’t accuse anyone of anything.”

“We have reason to suspect-”

“What reason?” Orange was on her feet too. “You can’t throw out these accusations so callously, you have no evidence.”

“There was no creature such as the one you described found on the scene, the only damage to the station was a destroyed airlock, and our team found evidence that said airlock was broken into from the outside.”

“Everything you just said was circumstantial!” Green hissed.

“And even if you were to put that forward,” Orange jumped in “you need it officially submitted for it to be viable. If you submitted your case we should have received a copy of the paperwork for it the day it was filed.” You had never seen her angry. You hoped that anger would never be directed at you.

“Not to mention, now that we’re talking about filing a formal accusation, wasn’t it your segment that told us to remain on scene when we were actively under pursuit.” Orange finished her verbal evisceration, watching in satisfaction as her opponent's smug expression fell, vanishing completely when Green picked up where she left off.

“That’s a pretty clear case of employee endangerment, especially since retreat was requested twice.”

“Not to mention there was already one confirmed fatality.” Black said.

Something shifted, the man across the desk smiled at Blacks words. It was unnerving.

“Funny you should mention that fatality. There wasn’t a body in that landing bay.” He stood, calmly fixing his lapels. “And if there was no body, then how exactly would you have known that the ship was hostile?” He stared at you. “Want to answer that question for me, Red?”

“I don’t know what happened to the body.”

“I thought so.” there was nothing you could do as you walked over to the door. “Security!”

“What? Security?” Yellow stood, growing more frantic at your side.

“You can’t do that, no formal charges have been pressed and-Hey! Hey!” Green was forced aside as three security officers entered the room, one of them all too eager to put cuffs on you and haul you forcibly out of your chair.

“Captain!” Blue yelled, shoving one of the security officers aside so that they could get into the hall with you. The rest of the team had erupted into noise, shouting at the security officers and the man that had called them on you.

“Blue don’t!” it was the first time you had ever raised your voice at any of the crew. Blue flinched. “Go back to the ship and wait for me okay? They can’t hold me.” one of the officers shoved your head down, forcing you to stumble the hall. “Orange is in charge!” You almost as one of the officers ‘accidentally’ clipped the back of your knee with their boot.

In the end you were dragged down the hall to the echoes of your team's efforts to get you back.


	7. Wet and Raw but not in the fun way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the captain has gone through it. this chapter has descriptions of a disassociateive episode, partial nudity, and a slightly manipulative use of the captains trust to get them to take some drugs that are not bad but just aren't explained to them.

Jail cells suck. The one they put you in while you waited for their official interviewer especially sucked.

Not only was it cold, completely void of a good place to sit, and smelled like mildew to the point it gave you a headache; they seemed to throw you in the cell and then forget that you even existed.

The analog clock on the wall told you that four hours had passed since you had been shoved into the cell, cuffs and all.

You slipped your legs through your arms, getting your hands in front of you so that you could sit with your back to the wall. Your fingers were going numb in the cuffs. You clenched and unclenched your hands, in time with the ticking clock on the wall. You hadn’t seen another person since they shoved you through the bars, they had activated the flickering blue shield array and then vanished, they didn’t even bother to check up on you. 

There wasn’t even a bathroom in the cell, not that you had to go but the lack of one was worrying. You leaned your head against the wall, you had a headache. 

You looked up into the face of the imposter. 

You scrambled to your feet, pressing your back to the wall, it was on the other side of the barrier, staring at you in your cell like it was at a zoo. 

It watched you with the beginning of a face, smiling with a mouth that opened too wide and had far too many razor sharp teeth. More of those mouths were starting to form, unzipping from its skin. It was pure white aside from where the red of those mouths opened. 

You squeezed your eyes shut. You could feel it watching you. 

You opened your eyes again and were met with it directly in front of you. It had no eyes, no ears or hair, yet it found a way to look...almost happy as it took your shoulders in its hands, it’s fingers longer than any human its size should be. 

You tried to shove it away, but it was so strong, so much larger than you. It pulled you towards it’s chest like a ragdoll, your feet leaving the floor. 

Then, it slammed you against the wall so hard that the metal buckled and burst outward, throwing the both of you into space. 

You fought, biting and scratching, writhing. You grabbed onto the creature and struck it, digging your thumbs into its eyes, using your hands to rip at the vulnerable skin of it’s stomach, biting into the meat of it’s shoulder and reveling in the flow of warm blood against the frozen vacuum of space. 

It was only when you tore a piece of flesh from it’s body that you remembered it did not have any eyes, your hands were not able to tear into skin like they just did, and your teeth were not nearly that sharp. 

You pull away to see a figure in red in your arms, your own eyeless and empty face staring at you. 

You woke with a jolt in the jail cell, your back to the wall and one leg completely numb from the awkward sitting position. The analog clock now pointed to eight, you wondered if that was am or pm. You figured it was pm. You had been here for six hours and counting. A click shoes on the linoleum floor dragged you out of your stupor, that must have been what woke you. 

A woman entered the room, in a sharp cut black suit with smooth, pulled back hair. She looked down at you with the sharpest pair of amber eyes you had ever seen. 

“Stand up.” You complied, a little shaky on the leg that had gone numb. She sighed. “How long have you been here?” you blinked. 

“Six hours I think?” Your voice came out sounding like a zombie with smokers lungs, raspy as hell.

“Have you had any access to food or a bathroom in that time?”

“No.” She marked something down on a clipboard. 

“Captain Red, do you know why you’re here?” You shook your head, trying to clear the afterimage of your empty eye sockets from your mind. 

“I-uh, I’ve been accused of...I don’t know exactly what, I was never told.” She continued to write. 

“Captain the official charges pressed against you are crew endangerment and filing a false report.” You blinked. 

“That's it? They…it seemed like I was on trial for murder?” She looked up at you sharply. 

“How so?” 

“They said that there was exterior damage to the airlock on transfer station M-0615105, they made it seem I was being accused of tampering with it?” She did not look up from her clipboard. 

“Interesting. Regardless of what you were told the charges filed against you are officially listed as crew endangerment and filing a false report. Neither of these are offences that you can be held for, and as long as you show up to your given court date you will be allowed to stay in your own quarters. Though, you should note that your ship has been grounded and your pilot's license has been suspended for the time being. Your preliminary hearing to present the evidence for and against you is to be held within the next five business days, a packet with information on the hearing has been sent to your company email, please review all information provided carefully and attend all our pre-trial meetings. I am your provided representative, you can call me Cricket, if all goes well you will be acquitted and your full Captains privileges will be restored.” She clicked her pen, sat it on the clipboard, and then looked up at you. “Any questions?” 

“Yeah, where’s my crew?” she pursed her lips, though you thought it was more to hide a smile then express dissatisfaction. 

“Well for the first four hours they were trying to figure out where you were.” she could no longer hold back her tiny smirk. “But they were convinced to return to their ship about two hours ago, though they were very reluctant.” She waved a security officer over. “You should also note that several of the transfer station crew were very upset about this situation, I believe they were promised a homemade dinner.” The officer deactivated the shields and finally removed the cuffs. They had been so tight your wrists were bruised. You winced as you rubbed some of the life back into them, it hurt. “Your crew clearly cares a lot for you.” 

“Yeah, I’m lucky to have them.” she stared at you, a little disbelieving. 

“Right. I’m sure luck is what it is.”

You dragged yourself back to the ship, exhausted. 

You didn’t bother lowering the ramp, instead using the ladder at the far end of the ship. It would be quieter, and wouldn’t wake anyone that was sleeping. 

The kitchen was dark when you got there, the bright lights made you flinch, the false artificial sunlight too harsh against eyes that had been staring at the wall of a dim jail cell for the past hour. You got a cup of water and chugged it, you were so dehydrated you felt almost loopy. You should probably have made something to eat as well, but your stomach was tied in so many knots that you could barely handle the water. Eating actual food was unimaginable.

“Captain?” You looked up from where you were staring into your glass, how long had you been doing that? Your team was there, in the doorway. They were cast in light like angels, haloed by the shadow of the dark, empty room behind them. You shook your head slightly, trying to clear the mist that had settled behind your eyes. 

“Hey-I-” you winced, unsure of what to say or do. “Did you guys eat dinner?” it was the only thing you could think of. “I know I wasn’t here to make it and I’m s-”

“Shut the fuck up.” Black crossed the room in five strides of his ridiculously long legs, wrapping a hand aground the back of your neck and pulling you face first into his chest. The hug was desperate, too tight. “Just shut the fuck up.” 

Everyone else was on you all at once, silent, pressing in steadily tighter until you were floating on the edge of suffocating. 

You were on a razor wire, a moment from crumbling into dust and scattering, the pressure of them around you was the only thing holding you together and at the same time it was too much, it was crushing.

“What the fuck is this?” Yellow grabbed your arm at the elbow, yanking your sleeve cuff aside to reveal the swelling. 

“It’s not as bad as it looks.” 

“That wasn’t his question.” When had Orange gotten behind you? 

“Can I have some space please?” It was too much right now. It was more than too much, it was painful to the point that it was killing you.  
They did as you asked, backing off of you slowly. You felt the air go down ten degrees, it was bracing, but it was terrible. You wanted them back but knew that the moment they did you would shatter like dry pasta. 

“The bruises are from the handcuffs, that’s all.” 

“Captain, you were dragged away from us by security.” Purple said. “I don’t think you understand how scary that was for us.” 

“We thought they might hurt you, and Captain, we were right.” There was a warmth on the bruises, a petal-soft surface laying on your skin. Blue had taken your hand, pressing their lips to your wrist. Their eyes were blue lightning, hooded as they laid a kiss over your pulse point. 

It felt like a hot knife in the gut. 

“Kissing it better?” you asked, concealing the stones in your throat with a touch of humor.

“Did it work?” Your lips twitched up, a tiny smile despite the turmoil. 

“I guess it did.” You deflated, letting them press back together around you. 

“What happened?” Green asked, refilling the glass of water that you had drained and handing it back to you. 

“They just put me in a holding cell.” The room went silent. Too tense, too tight.

You tried to back away, but they had you surrounded, the step you took back pressed you into Greens chest, and when you tried to recoil from that you were met with Purple in her pajamas, both of her palms flat to your chest as she eased you farther back into the hold of your crew. A shiver visibly ran up your spine. 

“What do you want?” you asked, sounding breathy and bordering on desperate. You were overwhelmed, scattered, you couldn’t pull any thoughts together except a faint panic and the overbearing question of ‘why?’. Why was this happening? Why was your crew doing this to you? 

“Stop thinking Captain.” Orange lay her hands heavily on your shoulders, her fingers brushing your neck. You gulped, the pressure of her fingers intensifying as your throat moved. 

“We told you to shut up.” Yellow took the hand that Blue wasn’t in possession of. “Not another fucking word.” That was okay. You didn’t have any left. 

They led you to the bathroom, and somewhere along the journey you came out of the headspace you were in earlier, one that you could only describe in retrospect as the physical sensation of being dipped in television static. It was lucky that the hypersensitivity wore off, because the crew led you directly into the bathroom and proceeded to coax you out of your clothes. 

Sitting in front of them in your underwear would have normally made you embarrassed, but something about how soft the situation was made the normal feeling of judgement drop away. Whatever it was, you were able to stand in front of them without fear of them finding some flaw. They stayed completely silent, sitting you down on the bench in front of a shower head and drenching you. Purple sat behind you in the stream of warm water, her legs wrapped around your waist and skin slick against yours as she worked through your hair with soap, her nails gently scratching at your scalp. 

You could have stopped them, you could have said something, but you just stayed silent as you had been commanded to do, letting them get the contact that you felt they needed just as much as you did. It was kind of nice to be taken care of like that, not given a chance to complain, to say they didn’t need to be worried about you or that you were okay, not expected to give anything in return. Purple put a hand on the back of your head and forced you to lean forward, farther under the stream of hot water. 

When you leaned down it was just you and Purple, when she threaded her fingers through your hair and pulled your head back up, you found yourself looking at Blacks hips. The crazy bastard had boxers with tiny pumpkins on them, you would have laughed if Purple didn’t keep pulling your hair, tilting your head back until your neck was strained at its limit. Black was tall, lean, pale as porcelain, looking up at him felt like you were staring into the eyes of something otherworldly, the water turning his skin to breathing stone, his hair to tattered silk ribbons, water falling off of long thick eyelashes like gemstones. You wanted to reach out with your tongue and catch one to see if it was solid. 

He put his hand on your jaw, dragging your lips open with the pad of his thumb. Something clinked against your teeth as he placed it on your tongue, a pill? 

“Swallow.” Water trickled in around the pill as he gently pushed your mouth closed, rubbing at your throat to make sure it went down. It didn’t escape you that you had no idea what he had just made you take and you hadn’t questioned him for even a moment. You had more than just faith in him, it was a blind trust. 

Blind trust? How long had it been since you had that for someone else? How long had it been since you could look someone in the eye and believe that they wouldn’t hurt you? You couldn’t remember.  
He parted your lips to check that you had swallowed, then released you and the water turned off. Leaving your skin warm but rapidly cooling to a chill. 

Orange wrapped a towel around your shoulders and Blue handed you a stack of clothes, they were pajamas, the short ones that were normally kept for the rare occasions when you were sleeping on land rather than the long ones that worked better in the chill of the ship. 

You dressed in them, they were soft against your skin. The towel slipped down your shoulders as you pulled your pants on, but Orange caught it and held it steady. 

It was a little strange that they were keeping you covered like that, you wouldn’t have minded it if they stripped you. Perhaps it was for their comfort as much as your own? 

You kept waiting for something to happen, some sexual intimacy that was normally so intrinsic to situations like this. It never happened, despite how obviously open to it you were. Actually now that you thought about it, it was kind of rude for you to assume they wanted the same. 

“Stop thinking, I can hear the gears turning.” Orange lifted the towel to your head and dried your hair. You did your best to quiet the rapture that was happening inside your head, just enjoying the sensation of the touch.

When they took you back to the kitchen you were surprised that you smelt food and not smoke, your question was answered when you found Green taking a package of dumplings out of the microwave. 

You were impressed that he had used it, the man had never even looked at a microwave before he arrived on the ship. 

Black put his hands on your shoulders and marched you to a stool at the counter.

“Sit down.” Yellow pulled out napkins and a pair of chopsticks, lifting the first dumpling out of the package and holding it to your mouth. You didn’t say anything, but the look of confusion on your face must have told him that you wanted to.

“Just eat the dumpling.” You did, it was still cold in the middle.

Blue carried you to bed, they had insisted on it, and you hadn’t been able to complain when they took your off your feet with the whispered warning of ‘up you go’. Their arms didn’t even shake. 

The team had pushed three of the cots together, forming one big bed. When Blue lay you on it you weren’t surprised that they crawled right in after you, wrapping an arm around your waist and tucking you against their chest. 

“Dibs.” Purple said as she took your other side, tucking her head under your chin, her curls tickling your neck. The others just kinda...piled in, Orange tugging the blanket over the group and sealing you all together in a bubble of warmth. 

You woke well before the ship's alarm, sweating from the collective warmth of the bodies around you. It wasn’t easy, but over the course of ten minutes you were able to ooze your way out of the pile to the end of the beds and put your feet onto the cold floor. 

You checked the clock.

Six am.

You walked a loop around the ship, checking the reactors, initiating the recalibration of the location software in navigation, running a diagnostic cycle on the shields, it was only once you hovered around the cafeteria and considered checking the airlock integrity (even though you had done it less than two days ago when your capsule with the coffee came in) that you finally conceded to the inevitable, stopping your procrastination to sit at your desk and pull up the information packet about court. 

Whoever sent you the files had done a very good job of keeping them in layman's terms. There were a few phrases that you would have to clarify with Green and Orange, but by the time you filled out your second sheet of notes and printed the last document to be signed and sent to your legal representative you felt that the trial wouldn’t be completely foreign to you anymore. 

You checked the clock. 

Quarter to eight. 

The smell of coffee floated through the air, accompanied by the rich mineral aroma of tomato. Shakshuka was a deceptively easy dish for the flavor payout, a tomato and vegetable stew with eggs (and cheese if you wanted to get non-traditional with it). You also toasted some crusty bread in olive oil, you knew how much your crew loved bread, who the fuck didn’t love bread (someone with a gluten intolerance probably).

“Captain?” You jumped, your hand slipping from the pot holder and causing you to nearly drop the pot. You recovered, your hand an unfortunate sacrifice as you caught the burning pot handle and rushed to put it down on the table. 

“Fuck!” You cursed under your breath. “Yellow, don’t sneak up on me like that!” He scoffed.

“I wouldn’t be able to sneak up on you if you weren’t so far in the clouds.” You put on a smile, a little forced in comparison to your normal one. 

“We’re in space, there are no clouds.” 

“There are clouds of cosmic dust!” He defended himself, glancing worriedly at your hand. “Are you okay?” you clenched your fist. 

“Yeah, the pan was just hot, are the others up?” He shrugged. 

“Naw, I figured it was more of a breakfast in bed kinda day.” For someone who tried so hard to pretend he didn’t care, Yellow was considerate. “I know you probably already did it, but I checked the reactors again anyway, and I did all of Blacks morning set up too, so you can get him to look at that hand once he’s up.” He fidgeted uncomfortably. 

“Hey cap-” “do you-” You both started talking at the same time. You huffed out a half hearted laugh. 

“You first?” you said, waiting for his response. 

“What happened yesterday, one second your getting dragged away and the next you show up with bruises and this look in your eye that just...you looked really fucked up last night, what happened?” You sighed. 

“They just put me in a holding cell, that’s all.” 

“They put you in a holding cell for six hours?” you rubbed at your reddening palm, you had been burnt worse than you thought.

“Yeah.” He pushed his hands through his hair, its waves still tangled from the night. He swore, some words that you didn’t even know the meaning of leaving his mouth. 

“Fuck! No wonder you were so far gone when you came back! Those bastards didn’t even have anything to hold you on!” You blinked at him.

“Hold on, how do you know they had nothing to hold me on? I could have paid bail.” He flushed. 

“No you couldn’t have, not with the salary they pay us.” 

“You’re avoiding the question.” He refused to meet your eyes. “Yellow, did you read my court packet?” 

“...No.” He said, like a liar. 

“How did you get my court packet? Do you know my password?” You didn’t mind him knowing your password, but you would like confirmation of how exactly he came about the information. “Do the others know my password?” 

“No, I-I didn’t tell them.” He gnawed on his bottom lip. “It was just a precaution, I could see you type it in on the cameras.” You sighed. 

“You could have just asked.” he gave a faint smile. 

“Where's the fun in that?” You laughed too. 

“So, did you find what you were looking for?”

“Not...exactly, I found the court packet when I was trying to find your location.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, your documents clearly state that you weren’t to be held, you were never even supposed to be arrested.” He looked furious, his voice getting more and more angry. “And those fuckers-those mother fuckers! They had the gull to hold you for six hours on false charges!” The laugh that bubbled out of him could only be described as manic. “You weren’t even in the fucking system!”

“It’s alright.” You tried to reassure him. 

“No it’s not alright! How would you feel if one of us got arrested? How would you feel if they dragged Purple away!” the look on your face probably told him all he needed to know. You would kill someone if that happened, you would put a lance through their ribs and make them suffocate in their own blood. “Captain they threw you in a cell and left you there to rot. They didn’t even let anyone know where you were! they’re trying to blame this shit on you and you know it!” You did know that, of course you knew that, but it was so hard to face it when you knew that employees rarely pulled out of their corporate hearings intact. 

“I know.” you sighed. “Yellow, can you do something for me?”

“Not if it’s fucking stupid!” You laughed a bit at that, waving him closer. 

“If I don’t make it out of this I need you to delete the footage from when we first got on the ship.” He stepped back from you. 

“What?” You sighed. 

“Look, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, during this trial they’re going to ask about the radio call.” 

“The one between the dead station and the ship?” 

“Yeah, they’re going to ask about how I knew that person wasn’t real, and I’m going to have to tell them about the first attack.”

“They know about the first attack, we already filed it.”

“We didn’t submit the footage.” He closed his eyes and cursed.

“Fuck, if they find you guilty and don’t believe us, they’re gonna subpoena the footage!” The footage from when you first arrived on the ship was full of blank spots. Some very suspicious looking blank spots, including one between when you were ejected from the ship and when you showed up in your cot. 

There was also a long period of static when you first arrived, and nothing existed in the tapes before that day. If they got that footage and started asking questions it could spell serious trouble.

“I need you to delete it, wipe it completely. Tell them that we only had emergency power that day and that the attack destroyed our hardware. Our atmosphere went out; tell them we had to switch to a backup drive when the power surge took our systems out. I need you to do anything to make sure it’s gone.” You put a hand on his shoulder. “And I need you to make the others believe that's the truth.” 

“Like I'd tell them, they can’t lie for shit.” You smiled at his fond expression. “Bunch of goody two-shoes.” You dropped your head, staring at the table.

“So you’ll do it?”

“Yeah Captain, I’ll do it.” 

“Thank you.” You pulled him into a hug, holding him tight. He froze for a moment, but then returned it with twice the pressure. 

“I’ll take care of them Captain, everything will be ready when you get back.” 

You stayed silent, but in your mind you acknowledged that ‘when’ was really more of an ‘if’. 

You pulled away and turned back to the table. 

“Alright, I’m not serving this in bed, but help me get the coffee to the others. They’ll be dead to the world without it.” 

“Not so fast Captain.” Yellow batted your hands away from the cups. “You’re seeing Black about that hand, right now.” 

“Black isn’t even up yet.” you tried to tug your wrist away from where he had grabbed it. 

“You sure about that?” Yellow pointed over your shoulder. 

“So eager to avoid the doctor's office captain?” Black was in the opening to the hallway, already looking eagerly at the cup of coffee that Yellow was holding out to him. “Not this time, get that pretty ass into my office.” 

“You think it’s pretty Black?” 

“It certainly is from the back, now get in there before I make you.” you scoffed at him and picked up your own mug, walking toward the medical wing. 

“As if you could.”

“Don’t challenge me!” He ran after you with his coffee, slipping through the door into his office ahead of you. “Now, what am I seeing you for? I didn’t actually catch it past the distraction of this  
scrumptious coffee." He took a sip, lighting up like a Christmas tree. “Hey! You remembered how I like it!” You sat on one of the uncomfortable chairs. 

“Of course I remembered. I took inspiration for my own stuff.” Like you had given him an invitation he took your cup and sipped. 

“Vanilla and cinnamon.” 

“Yeah.” His eyes strayed to the bruises around your wrists and the developing blisters on your palm. 

“Oh, was this what yellow was talking about?” 

“Unfortunately, I nicked my hand on a pan.” 

“That’s more than a nick captain, that's a nasty second degree burn. Did you at least run it under water when you first got it.” you winced, and that told him all he needed to know. He exhaled through his nose harshly. 

“Captain, for someone who is so good at almost everything you are real shit at basic self care.” he dragged you over to a sink and started running water over your burn. 

“I am not.”

“Really?”

“Yeah I have good hygiene and I work out three times a week and...I get enough sleep most days.” He brought his hand up and brushed it against your jaw. 

“And you don’t treat your wounds.” 

“Okay I’ll give you that one.”

“And the days that don't get enough sleep you don't sleep at all.”

“Well that’s-” 

“And if you weren’t cooking for us, you would live off of sandwiches and the occasional apples.”

“Those things are nutritionally comple-”

“And you don’t have any hobbies.”

“That’s not-”

“A few days ago Purple caught you sharpening the knives in the kitchen and you told her it was for fun.”

“It’s relaxing!” 

“But not enjoyable, you never have any fun, you never relax properly, you never treat yourself unless it’s a result of pampering someone else, you’re shit at self care.” You leaned your head in your free hand, watching him as he wrapped your hand.

“And you’re the expert?” He released your hand and started washing his hands. 

“I’ll have you know that I do a face mask every once in a while.” You laughed.

“A face mask sounds good.” 

“We should do one when you get back from your meeting today.” You tilted your head. 

“How did you know that I had a meeting today?” 

“I checked your email after everyone went to sleep last night.”

“I didn’t hear you get up.” 

“You were dead to the world.”

“Isn’t that your fault?” He drew his brows together.

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you give me something last night? I slept really well so I guess I just assumed…” you trailed off. 

“Captain, that was ibuprofen.” you froze, a sheepish grin on your face.

“Oh.” 

“Maybe it was a good sleep because you had your team around you.” You looked down. 

“Maybe.” You were quiet after that. “Hey black, if I don’t come back-”

“You’re coming back captain.” he said it with such conviction, like it was a fact instead of a prediction. From where he was leaning against the counter, sipping his coffee and looking self assured, he reminded you of someone that just won an argument. 

“How did you know about the meeting?” 

“I guessed your password.” 

“Am I really that predictable?” 

“Please, ROYGBPB1? I’m surprised everyone on this ship doesn’t know your password.” You laughed.

“Yeah I guess that was pretty stupid huh.” You kept staring down, at your bandaged hand and at the floor, slate gray against your bare feet. He placed a hand on top of your bowed head. 

“The others aren’t here right now Cap, you can let yourself go for a bit.” 

Emotions were a tricky thing. Just for a moment, with your head bowed and black sipping his coffee as a patient presence by your side, you let yourself experience the horror of the last few days.

God damn it had been a shit show.

“Ah, Captain Red.” You stood from your chair and offered your hand to Cricket, her pressed suit jacket today was covered in a bright floral pattern.

“Hello ma’am.” She waved a hand dismissively. 

“You can just call me Cricket.” 

“Cricket then, I reviewed the packet you sent me.” you slid a stack of papers across the desk. “I emailed scans to you, but here are some paper copies too.” 

“Thank you.” she flipped through the stack, nodding to herself. You shifted uncomfortably in your seat. You didn’t know what to think of Cricket yet, she was abrupt but not in a rude way. You supposed that the best descriptor was ‘professional’.

“Captain Red.” you sat straighter. 

“Yes?” 

“How would you feel about staying away from your crew for the next few days?” You foze. 

“Staying away from my crew? What? Why would I need to do that?” Cricket pulled a notepad out of nowhere. 

“I have been looking into the possibility of using your team as witnesses, I would like you to stay separate from them before the trial to avoid any accusations of collusion.” You lapsed into silence. 

Separate from your team? You couldn’t do that! They wouldn't be able to cook without you (though, you did stock the freezer with microwave meals), and what about waking up on time (though if you didn’t turn off the alarm someone else would have to do it and they could get the others up), or what about tasking duties or reworking the total budget with Orange, or prepping for the next reactor upgrade or replacing the shield force absorbers! 

Except they didn’t really need you for all those things. Sure you helped run the machine smoothly, and everything went better when you were there but you weren’t required. 

You just didn’t want to be apart from them. 

You really didn’t want to be apart from them.

“How long would it be?”

“Five days, the off day plus the remaining four business days until your court date.” You put your elbows on your knees and hunched, chewing the inside of your cheek. 

“On one condition.” you straightened back up. “Deliver a message for me when you tell them that I won’t be coming back.” 

“So long as it’s nothing that endangers the case.” You smiled at her.

“Nothing like that, just remind them to mist my terrarium and tell them green is the only one allowed to use the microwave.” She threw back her head and laughed. 

“Red” she said “they are going to regret trying to pin blame on you.”

“What else do you need me to do?” The smile that spread across Crickets' face terrified you. 

“Captain, have you ever heard of counter-suing?” 

As it turns out, what they had done to you before the court was equally as important as the event itself. Depriving you of food and water, locking you up without charges, lying to you about the accusations against you, failing to provide you with a lawyer, holding an informal interrogation, there was a list a mile long about abuse of power. If you were found innocent then you would be able to rain hellfire upon those that detained you. 

“I don’t know if I want to do that.” You shifted uncomfortably in your chair. “Corporate stuff can be too slow, accusing him could lead him to do something to my team.” Cricket lifted an eyebrow. 

“Captain, did it ever occur to you as strange that I showed up as a representative when you were not told that you would be given one?” Now that you thought about it that was kind of weird. 

“It may have crossed my mind.” 

“This isn’t the first time he’s done something like this, the other employees aren’t fond of him. He does have some loyal people under his thumb, but more than that have a distaste for him.” She grinned, tilting her head. “To tell you the truth it was your own teammates that found me, with the wholehearted backing of at least eighty crew members from the transfer station. Once they informed me that you had been taken, I was able to give you back to them in less than an hour” 

“This is sounding more and more like a court room drama crime show every second.” 

“Why do you think they’re so popular? There is a micron of truth in those shows, however inaccurate they are.” she sighed “and some of the employees in this station have a nasty habit of keeping their filthy hands hidden in their pockets, ‘there’s no proof’ they say.” She waved a hand around. “Nice to see the shit finally hitting the fan for him.” 

“For him.” you laughed bitterly, craning your head back and looking at the plain white ceiling above you. God you hated white, the ship was all gray, calm and soft looking in comparison to the harshness. It was the difference between stepping on a ball bearing and stepping on a lego. “His is coming, but mine is today.” You looked at her with a forced grin. “My team is going to be pissed, they’ll come looking for me without a doubt.” they were too smart for their own good and they knew it. They would try to find a way to contact you without anyone finding out tirelessly until they confirmed you were okay with their own eyes. “You have a plan for that?” 

“I have security measures in place and a room far across the ship.” 

“Security measures?” 

“Yes.” 

“Double them, you gave my team a singular objective and time to burn, you’ll be lucky if a planet is enough space to hide me.” Cricket could only grin.

“I figured.”


	8. Pull Out the *Spicy* Uniforms for Court

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Captain prepares, and then goes to court. The porn is almost here, not quite yet but soon.

Day one (the off day, four days until court):

Your message was delivered to the crew, and as expected they did not take kindly to it. Green and Orange had tag-teamed legal mumbo jumbo at the messenger. Apparently they already knew that you were counter-suing and tried to claim that since they were also plaintiffs of that case they had a right to see you. 

Cricket was able to shut them down (just barely) by arguing that you had a better chance of being cleared if they acted as witnesses. You had a feeling they only pretended to give in. 

Day two (three days until court):

They were only pretending to give in. You figured that out when you were washing your face after using the treadmill in the gym and looked into the mirror to see Purple standing behind you, her arms crossed. 

“Fuck!” You spun around. “Purple, you can’t be here, if you get caught they could discard the team's testimony!” 

She was not swayed.

“You left, and you had the audacity to send a messenger and tell us to mist your terrarium!” her voice gradually rose into a yell as she backed you up against the sinks, your back pressing harshly into the edge of the counter. “Come mist it yourself you coward!” 

You just stood there, frozen in complete shock. 

“You can’t just go off to nowhere without saying goodbye dumbass! At least face us yourself!” 

You slowly broke into a smile, a laugh bubbling up. 

“Purple, I only have to stay away because of the hearing, I have no intention of being away forever.” you relaxed against the counter. 

“Not good enough!” she shoved a finger in your face. “You owe us two updates a day! Minimum!” You laughed again, putting your hands up in the universal sign of surrender. 

“Does this count as the first one?” 

Day three (two days until court): 

They found you by using the bathrooms, genius. They narrowed down the area of the ship that you would be staying in and waited outside of the communal restrooms until you showed up in one. 

You had a feeling it was almost too easy for them. 

When you told Cricket about it she had laughed and then proceeded to chew you out for endangering her case. It was lucky that she wasn’t one to hold grudges. 

In the end you got two, monitored emails a day. You sent one in the morning and one at night, telling the team about how shit the food was and carefully relaying instructions on how to bake one of the lasagnas that you froze. 

You also tried to tell them how to make the bag of frozen French fries, but apparently Purple thought that if she cranked up the oven temperature they would cook faster, they had to use a fire extinguisher on the charred mess when it caught fire and you sent them a page long essay telling them exactly how to clean your oven. 

“If they leave chemical residue in my kitchen I swear I will make them food in it and feed it to them. They will eat their mistakes!” You mumbled to yourself as you finished typing your long rant, crossing your arms over your chest with a reluctant smile on your face. 

You swiveled back and forth in your chair, the room that had been provided for you was sparse, it was company housing. You only had your desk, a computer, a single bed that was just a tiny bit bigger than your cot on the ship, and a swivel chair that was bolted to the floor so that it wouldn’t move if the ship banked more than a few degrees.

You smiled sadly at the unsent email. You wished that you were there to chew them out in person and then make them a meal that they would not-doubt praise.

The overhead lights flickered, buzzing unpleasantly. This part of the ship was newer, and they had renovated the old school artificial sunlight, opting to use it in crew common areas instead of individual dwellings. The new lighting was harsh and it gave you a headache. 

You missed your jolly ole’ girl, still outfitted with the original systems and full of your team. 

You realized belatedly that you were homesick. 

When had that ship become home? When you spent every day of a whole week there? When you watched your tenth movie with the crew? When you woke up, warm and relaxed, wrapped up in their embrace?

You thought it really started all the way back at the first real day you spent on the ship, when you sat around the table and served the crew your food for the first time. Passing around the dishes, arguing about the best type of hot sauce, teasing Orange for how flushed her face got when she tried to steal a bite off of Green’s plate and suffered a coughing fit from the salsa he put on it (apparently it used california reaper peppers, and Orange didn’t have the best tolerance for spice).

That had felt like a dinner with people who you had known for years, it was rare for you to get along well with one or two people, getting along with six was unheard of. You fit together like finely milled gears as parts of a great machine. 

You missed that feeling. 

The light flickered again, that was unusual, normally the wiring for large ships like these was flawless. 

They turned off a moment after that. Plunging you into complete darkness. 

You immediately stood, fumbling to the door and popping the door open and letting the red of the emergency lights seep into your room. 

As soon as you did you flinched back, there was someone standing in the dark, outlined by the light coming through the door. 

You let out a sound that was embarrassingly close to a yelp as it lunged toward you, already struggling as it put a gloved hand over your mouth and shoved you back into your room, the door slamming behind it. 

The light from the door vanished and the darkness took over again, everything going completely pitch black. You scrabbled against the figure in front of you, biting into the hand that covered your mouth. 

“Ouch!” they shoved you, the back of your knees making contact with the bed and sending you sprawling. 

You rolled, sending yourself over the far side of the bed and to the floor. 

The figure couldn’t see you just as you couldn’t see it, and you heard it shuffle around on the bed, looking for you. You grabbed the keyboard off of your desk and chucked it as hard as you could in the direction of the noise. 

It struck.

“Ouch!” 

You lunged toward the sound and slammed the figure into the wall. 

“Wait! Wait! Captain it’s me!” You stopped, raising your palm and pressing it to the intruders face. 

Full cheeks, square jaw, soft, fluffy hair growing out of what used to be a sharp undercut. 

“Blue!” 

As if on cue the lights flickered on. Sure enough, Blue was looking back at you sheepishly, clutching their hand and nursing a developing bruise on their cheek. 

You let out a groan of pure frustration. 

“What are you doing here?” you hissed, furious. “If you get caught you’re going to jeopardize the-” they kissed you, pressing one of their huge hands to the base of your spine and crushing you against their chest. Their other hand went to the back of your head, cradling you closer as they feathered their tongue into your mouth. 

They were an incredible kisser, they tasted like watermelon candy, and the graze of their canines against your lip made something thrill in your belly. 

You shoved them farther back against the wall, pressing a leg in between theirs. They pressed back. 

You didn’t stand a chance against that type of strength, tripping backwards and falling onto the bed. 

They followed, strippng off the top of their coveralls and the shirt they wore under it as they approached. They were built sturdy and rippling with muscle. They had a full chest, sculpted shoulders, a strong core with just a light covering of fat that was deliciously striped with purple-silver stretch marks. Their thighs strained at where the bottom of the coveralls dangled off their hips, the muscle clear even through the fabric. They fumbled with the zipper to your uniform, slipping their hands under your butt to pull the pants down over your legs.

They leaned against the bed, dipping themselves down to press a kiss to you through your underwear. You let out a sharp hiss, biting on the side of your hand to keep the groan from leaving you. They laughed, breath huffing against your hips. 

You propped yourself on an elbow and reached for them, pulling them until they came face to face with you. 

They lifted one of your legs, tossing it over their back. Their butt was just as firm as it looked. 

You gave them a cheeky grin as you reached around and squeezed one of those perfect cheeks. 

They smirked and ground your crotches together in a smooth thrust that was downright sexy to watch. Their back was so delicious you wanted to lick every pane of it. 

You smiled and let your eyes flutter closed as they manhandled you farther onto the bed, stemming their hands on either side of your head and dipping down again, their mouth cool against yours. 

Your eyes snapped open. Cool? Blue wasn’t cool, they radiated heat. Whenever you shared a space with them you could start off frozen and no matter what you would end up sweating. You pushed them off of you, laying sprawled across the bed and panting. 

They stood over you, their breath heaving under their casuals. 

“Captain what-”

“What are you?”

Their eyes go wide for a moment, and as you look at them you notice that the color is wrong, it's too pale, not bright enough or deep enough. 

They smile and their teeth are spars. 

There’s a nasty crack as their head snaps to the side, their body morphing, the blue of the suit fading to a harsh white. 

The creature is in the same white suit that it wore the first time you saw it, it’s broad, almost seven feet tall. It has no eyes, but has a mouth and nose. Pure white, matte hair that’s so short it’s almost a buzz cut is growing on its head. 

It reaches toward you, it’s fingers still horrifying and too long. It’s smiling at you as it changes from the face of Blue into the abomination it truly is. 

You try to move, but you’re frozen, eyes wide as you watch it approach you.

As it crawled over you you felt no breath against your face, it’s body lacking a heart beat, lacking in the warmth that came from another human being.

It didn’t bother with the bone spars it normally used, this time, it lanced one of its hands directly through your body, ripping through the mattress.

You coughed, it’s paper-pale skin becoming covered with red freckles as the spray left your mouth.

You felt warmth spread as your blood seeped into the bed, acting as one final embrace as the creature leaned down, and pressed it’s mouth against yours.

You sat straight up in your chair, gasping and covered in sweat. The glow of your computer monitor burned into your eyes. 

No. Nonononononononono that did not just happen. You did not just have a dream about one of your crew mates. You did not just have a WET dream (turned nightmare) about one of your crewmates.

And you were NOT going to wonder if Blue’s butt was really that firm under their uniform.

You were not going to wonder if water droplets would taste best if licked off of the column of Blacks throat.

Or if Purples boobs were as soft as they felt pressing against you whenever you hugged. 

Or if Green's legs would look even better if he wore a lacy teddy that fell to mid thigh. 

Or if Yellow would look cute with his legs pinned to his chest and his hands bound in the wires he so often worked with.

And you certainly were not going to think about how good Orange would look on her knees, flush high on her cheeks and- no, you were NOT thinking of that.

You shake your head and slap your cheeks a few times to focus yourself. 

You had an email to finish, preferably before your team decided to show up because they hadn’t gotten the updates you promised them. 

Day four (Court is tomorrow): 

“What the fuck is this?” You stared at the dry-cleaning bag draped over the bed. 

“Your formal uniform.”

“I have a formal uniform?” you looked in horror at the bag, Cricket sipping a cup of coffee and completely ignoring your struggle. 

“You do, sign this.” You did, scrawling your signature where she pointed. 

“What did I just sign?” 

“The dry cleaning voucher.” 

“Oh, I don’t have to pay for it?” 

“No, you just have to wear it, now try it on.” You hated formal wear, it felt so...wrong. It was stuffy and itchy and nothing ever fit you right. 

“Do I have to?” Cricket was completely unfazed by your misery. 

“Yes, we need to know if it needs tailoring, and besides” she pulled out her phone. “Your team asked me for pictures.” 

You groaned. 

“They’re gonna be the fucking death of me!” 

Day five (court day):

The formal uniform consisted of black, straight cut pants, shined leather shoes, a red pilot's cap embroidered with a gold compass star, black gloves, and a white shirt that was completely concealed by the formal jacket in your signature red that buttoned to your throat. It reminded you of the cut of the Marines formal uniform from your old dimension. Despite your hesitation it ended up looking very good on you. 

The only decoration your jacket had was black piping and a gold pin depicting a pair of wings that designated you as a captain. You had been allowed to keep it on for the court date, but Cricket had told you that if you were found guilty it would be removed as you were taken into custody. You hated the thought of that, your pilots license was a point of pride, something that you felt connected to despite not having any knowledge of training to receive it. 

You ran on instinct when you were flying your ship, knowledge that you were sure you did not have before you woke up on the floor came to you without prompt. 

“Are you ready Captain?” Cricket stood at your side, professional and sharp in an immaculate navy suit. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” you gulped. You were not ready. You were absolutely not ready. 

“Captain.” she put a hand on your shoulder “we’ve reviewed this dozens of times, answer the questions fully and slow down if you get nervous, don’t let them rattle you-”

“Don’t punch him in the face.” 

“That too, though I put my money on Orange doing that.” 

“I would have bet Purple.”

“Everyone else bet Yellow.” 

“Nope, Purple for sure. Though,” you thought a bit “if Orange hits him he’s not getting up, do you think we’d still have to do this if he was dead?” She snorted a laugh.

Court was a little different in this dimension (you were not sure if that was because this dimension was in the future or if it had always been this way), you would present your case to a panel of experts in your field, and they would decide if you actions were reasonable and done without unnecessary risk to your crew. 

Both the persecution and the defense would have the same opportunity to question the witnesses and both sides would present their own evidence. 

You weren’t allowed to know the experts presiding over the case until they were introduced in the court, but from what Cricket had told you, it was likely to be some people pretty far up the legal chain, anything that had to do with the extinction event on M-0615105 was of foremost interest to them. 

“When you walk in your team will be sitting to your left; don’t make eye contact, don’t even look at them.” you nodded, any contact with them could appear to be a signal. 

“Don’t look at the persecution either, no hostility.” You nodded again. 

“I just need to walk straight in and keep my eyes forward.” 

‘Exactly, there will be chairs when we get there but-”

“Don’t sit until the judges have been introduced and give permission.” You didn’t look over at her, but you sensed that Cricket was smiling. 

“You’ve got it Captain, now let’s go to war.” 

You didn’t look at your team when you entered the room, you didn’t dare no matter how desperately you wanted to. 

Instead, you kept your face carefully neutral as you walked in and stood behind the desk.

“Please rise for Fleet-Captain Renolds, Chief of production for sector M: Mister Mori Sanchez, and co-engineer of the A-Series crafts Fanadia of the intergalactic coalition of Sabrica.”

There was a murmur that broke out through the room. Two humans and one humanoid entered, sitting behind the desk at the front of the room. 

The captain that came in was older, her hair had gone slate-silver and hung in a pristine bob, though her skin showed the telltale liver-spots of age, her black eyes were still sharp. 

Mori Sanchez on the other hand looked very young, with full cheeks and an excited energy, he looked ecstatic to be there. 

The humanoid was glowing, and she looked to be made entirely of glass, the occasional slow bubble rising from somewhere within the robe she wore and trickling upwards through her head. 

Even her hair looked to be thick strands of pulled glass, gorgeous and in varying shades of blue. She had a single eye, faceted and multi toned like a giant, technicolor jewel. As she sat you realized that she was staring directly at you. 

It was unusual for a non human to preside in a human court, but not unheard of, and you knew that no one was as qualified for the job as the woman looking down on you. 

You actually knew who Fanadia was, her name was written on the blueprint of your ship. She had been one of the pioneers of interstellar travel at near light speed, it was her designs that allowed the extreme acceleration that was necessary without causing harm to passengers.

And now she was staring at you from the judges' dais in a courtroom where you were about to be accused of terrible things. 

You were going to kill the bastard that made your first meeting with the woman that changed the world so awful. 

Though you were pretty sure Orange was faster than you, she would probably reach him first. 

Fanadia was in the central seat of the row of judges, that meant that she was the presiding official, her voice was deep and gravely, completely juxtaposing how delicate her three fingered hand looked as it lifted the packet of papers in front of her. 

“Please introduce the defendant.” Cricket stood beside you. 

“Your honor, I am representing Captain Red, the current pilot of Skeld craft A-0000156.” She gestured to you and you removed your hat, tucking it under your arm and bowing your head to the dais.

“Thank you, you may sit.” You rushed to sit in the chair behind the desk, moving so fast that the edge of the ornate, dark wood table punched you in the gut on the way down.

“Will the prosecution present the charges.”

A chair scraped across the wood floors as the asshole on the other side of the court room stood. 

“Your honor, the charges we bring against the defendant are filing a false report and crew endangerment on two counts. One on the six person crew of A-0000156 and one on the 1075 person crew of M-0615105, all of whom are deceased.” The courtroom went so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop. 

“Very well, we will begin court proceedings with the defense.” 

As rehearsed, Cricket called you to the stand, from your spot in the chair you couldn't help but sneak a glance at where your team sat in two neat rows. 

Each of them wore a formal uniform similar to your own, in their signature colors with gold piping and military berets instead of your classic pilots cap.

They looked really good in those tailored jackets.

Cricket stood and approached the stand, reminding you that you needed to take a deep breath. It was show time. 

You explained everything, every detail that you could remember from the day that you discovered the fallen M-0615105. You told the judges about arriving at the station, going through the radio calls, even the comment that resulted in Green running out of the room to escape from Purple's wrath. It was only when you got to the body dangling in the landing bay that things started to get harder. 

“As I was pulling into the landing bay, I noticed that there was something hanging from one of the catwalks, it was an-uh, it was half of a body.” The silence that followed that statement was more than tense, it was pulled to the breaking point. 

“You saw half of a body in the ship's landing bay?” 

“Yes.” 

“And that was when you made the decision to retreat?”

“Yes, when I saw the body I realized there might be danger on the transfer station, so I pushed the ship into reverse.”

“And how long did it take for you to leave the hangar?” 

“About thirty seconds.” 

“Why did it take so long for you to remove your crew from danger? Shouldn’t you have retreated as fast as possible?” It was another of the questions you had gone over with Cricket, it was to help display that you handled the situation appropriately. 

“The A-series crafts are a little heavy, and they have trouble accelerating. I went from first gear into reverse in an environment with artificial gravity. It takes time to make the change in direction.” Cricket turned away from you on the stand and faced the judges. 

“Fleet-Captain Renolds, would you please take a look at this footage and determine for yourself if Captain Red acted with all possible haste.” A clip of the footage from the cockpit played. It did not show the body where it dangled just out of frame, but it did show the ship stall as you slammed it into reverse. You watched your own maneuver out of the landing bay, the footage deceptively calm for the first few moments. When the imposter ripped off the airlock and began charging after the ship a ripple of surprise spread through the room. The footage cut as soon as you pulled the ship to a halt a distance from the deck. 

Captain Reynolds raised her eyebrows, just as silver as her hair. 

“I started my career as a pilot on the A-series crafts, they are difficult to maneuver, most people need years to be versed in their controls and peculiarities. This particular reversal maneuver is difficult because the A-series craft has a tendency to drift in artificial gravity.” A touch of a smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “Even an experienced pilot would take almost a minute. To do this maneuver in thirty seconds demonstrates not just proficiency, but mastery.” 

Cricket inclined her head.

“Thank you Fleet-Captain Renolds, now Captain Red, will you continue?”

You described pulling to a stop at a distance that you believed was safe, and another clip from the attack was seen as you described the attack against your ship. 

“Allow me to clarify, when you were at a presumably safe distance you requested permission to retreat and were denied.” 

“Yes, twice.” 

“Twice? What did you do when you were denied?” 

“I didn’t get the chance to do anything, we came under attack too quickly.” 

“But let’s say that you had not been attacked, what would your next step have been.” 

“I would have proceeded to transfer station M-0615104.” 

“You would have left the scene against orders?”

“The safety of my crew is my foremost priority, I would have retreated even against orders.” Cricket gave you a subtle nod. 

“No further questions your honor.” 

Fanadia turned to the other side of the room. 

“The prosecution may counter-question the first witness now.” 

On the other side of the courtroom, the man that had accused you of contributing to the death of an entire transfer station stood. If you remembered correctly, his name was Terall- no, it was ‘Segment Manager Terall’. 

You bet his mom didn’t pay attention to him as a kid, nothing said ‘mommy issues’ like a blind desire for power. 

“Red” he began, notably leaving off the ‘captain’ moniker from your title. Cricket stood from her chair. 

“Objection your honor! My clients proper title is Captain Red.” Neglecting that title implied that your license had already been removed, when in reality it had only been suspended. 

“Withdrawn.” He approached the witness stand. 

“Captain Red,” he said ‘captain’ with far too much contempt “I would like to bring attention back to the first actions you made in the landing bay, you began to retreat as soon as you saw the body, correct?”

“That is correct.” 

“And yet when the rescue crew arrived on transfer station M-0615105 they found no body. Why do you think that would be.” 

“I don’t know what happened to the body, but it was there when I first arrived on the scene.” 

“Did anyone else see this scene that you described?”

“I don’t believe so, no.” 

“Very well, upon seeing this supposed body-”

Cricket stood from her seat.

“Objection! Speculation!”

“Withdrawn, upon seeing this body you began to remove yourself from the landing bay, why did you decide that was the action that you had to take?” You took a deep breath. 

“There was a dead body, when I saw that I had no idea what caused it, the best course of action at the time was to leave the station and reassess the situation.”

“So you did not think to help the crew members that you knew were aboard M-0615105.”

“I didn’t know if there were any crew members alive on the station.” He smirked. 

“But didn’t you talk to a radio operator?” He played the recording of the radio conversation that you had broadcast to the transfer station, staring smugly at you the entire time. “So I ask again, why did you not attempt to help the crew on M-0615105?” 

“A few reasons.” This was the hardest part. Nothing you said could be anything but unclockable, even the parts that were going to be lies.

“Firstly, I run my ship with the philosophy that it is better to be safe than sorry, this job is inherently risky, and I do not take unnecessary gambles with the lives of my crew.” Without meaning to, your voice dropped an octave, it became serious in the span of a few words, a lot harsher than your normal speaking tone. It was what your crew called your captain's voice. 

“Second, a radio transmission does not guarantee that someone is friendly, anyone could have been on that ship, anyone could have been behind that radio station.” You saw Fleet-Captain Renolds give a subtle nod. 

“If I reversed out of that landing bay and it had been a misunderstanding then so be it, the chance that something on that ship posed a threat to my team was greater and more pressing.” 

“And once you were clear, once the creature was safely away from you, why did you intend to ignore orders and retreat? If there was life on that ship then you were in the best position to save them.” You clenched your fists, using the techniques that Cricket taught you. 

“As you saw in the footage, my ship was attacked, the creature was clearly much stronger than I anticipated it to be, and if the shields hadn’t held I think it would have taken out my ship.” 

“But it was dead, or at the least heavily injured when it rebounded from the ship, so why leave?” 

“I-” 

“And to call a total station kill immediately as you left, was that not preemptive? Was it not putting survivors in danger to declare them dead?” 

“I-”

“You had a radio call that indicated survival on the ship, you had the hostile dead or injured with no serious approaching threats and yet you chose to leave M-0615105 knowing that there was likely someone on that ship that needed to be saved.” 

“There was no-one alive on that ship!” If you had used your captain's voice before, this one was a commander's voice. “When that creature ripped off the airlock, there was no atmospheric thrust leaving the ship.” 

“That-”

“That means the ship was completely depressurized.” 

He took a moment to compose himself

“Each crew member is provided with an atmospheric suit, many could have-”

“While I wish that was the case Mister Terall-” you held up a hand to stop him. “When I received that radio call, no mention was made of this incident, a complete depressurization of the ship would have taken two hours at a minimum and during that time alams and the warning lights would have been active, yet there was nothing. That thing or one of it’s brethren were the only living things on that ship, and they were the ones that sent that communication.” 

“Objection, speculation.” He shot you a look as he spoke, something between disgust and reprimand. 

You placed your hands on the desk, the gloves that went with the formal uniform straining against the clenching of your fists. 

Fanadia nodded.

“Upheld, that will be struck from the record.” 

“No more questions from me, your honor.” The tiny smirk on his face made you furious, fuck, what had that slip up cost you?

They looked good in their uniforms, they looked really good. As each of your team was called to the stand to testify you were slapped across the face with the realization that you needed therapy. The entire time you hid under the brim of your hat and spent your time desperately hoping that the expressions on your face didn’t reflect the thoughts in your head. 

Of course most of those thoughts were complete turmoil telling you that when a guilty verdict was handed down you would be in deep shit.

One by one, each of your teammates testified, trickling up to the stand and being gutted about their part in the events on M-0615105. 

When you were first accused you had brought yourself to believe that they would bring up the previous attack on your ship, but according to Cricket bringing that evidence into the case would result in a shit storm for both the defense and the prosecution. Instead, each of your teammates were walked in circles around the event, asked if they believed you could have done something different, asked if they felt endangered, asked if you had ever manipulated them or done anything that put them in jeopardy. 

It was very satisfying to watch Terall; the asshole that had you wrongfully imprisoned, become more and more frustrated as each team member avoided his verbal pitfalls like professionals (you guessed Green was one to an extent). 

The entire courtroom downright snickered when Yellow took the stand and when asked the question ‘why didn’t you zoom out on the video so that we can see the rest of the landing bay?’ replied with thirty seconds of unbelieving silence followed by the response of ‘no I’m sorry, we can’t do that.’ 

The words themselves weren’t funny, but the expression on his face that made it so obvious he wanted to say something else was hilarious. You had to bite your lip to stop from chuckling. 

When Cricket got her turn to question the witnesses she took the opportunity to speak in depth about the events of your arrest. Apparently you seemed too ‘dispassionate’ about your own containment to be a valuable witness (something Cricket had been livid about, she had spent three hours calling you ‘uselessly un-self aware’).

Two breaks and eight hours later, the court had finally reached a conclusion. 

“Will the defendant please rise.”

The chair scratching across the floor sounded too loud to your ears. You hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep last night, and the last extra strong cup of tea on your break was starting to wear off. Whatever happened next, at least you would be able to sleep. The judges stood, Fanadia shimmering under the light as she prepared to present the verdict. 

“After reviewing the evidence for and against the defendant it is the opinion of this panel that Captain Red has been falsely and maliciously accused of these crimes. The defendant is found innocent and is to be cleared on all charges.” She turned to the prosecution's table.

“As for the countersuit case, we have found that the false allegations that were brought against Captain Red were filed with malicious intent, and thusly we will be looking into those responsible. Captain Red has gone through unrest at the hands of you and your people Terall, and these claims were not conducive to the truth, to call them stretches would be too kind. As of right now you are suspended, and further action will be taken.” His face fell throughout the verdict. 

Fanadia paused. 

“Court adjourned.” 

“YEAH!” You turned around just in time to see that your team had thrown their berets into the air like graduation caps and were now attempting to jump over the gate that separated the court pews from the rest of the room. 

They let out an incredible shout as they rushed toward you.

You lifted your arms in victory hailing them as they rushed forward with a grin and what you were sure was a look of disbelief on your face.

“Captain!” Orange was the first to reach you, she hit you like a freight train and swept you full off your feet, tugging your cap off your head so that it wouldn't poke her in the chin.

She spun you three hundred and sixty degrees and then plopped you down. You had just enough time to see a dazzling smile that reached all the way to the bottle green of her eyes when another body hit you, everyone piling in at once and nearly making you lose your balance. 

You staggered against the desk and wrapped your arms around as many of them as you could. 

“Come on Captain!” Purple grabbed your arm, in the light coming through the courtroom window (the yellow rays of a passing sun) her eyes broke into a thousand window panes, turning teakwood and tigerseye. She had sailboat eyes, where it looked like the sails of proud ships were reflected in their depths. “Let’s get you home!” 

You smiled, not even a little bit teary eyed, no matter what anyone else said.

“Aw guys! I’m already home!” 

Someone had left the bread out. 

It was a good opportunity to make a charcuterie board. 

“What did you say these were called again?” the crew had thrown a party to celebrate your return, inviting the friends they made among the crew of M-0615104 to finally get that tour you promised them so long ago. 

They had brought alcohol, which resulted in a gaggle of people playing darts in the cafeteria and marveling over all the ‘antique’ features of your A-series craft while you manned the kitchen. 

Purple had decided that she was going to join you, and sat on the counter while you made a feast of Italian appetizers that when taken together might make a whole meal. 

“It's a crostini.” Crostini's were just slices of French bread, toasted to death and brushed with olive oil, they made great vessels for shoveling cheese into your mouth, not to mention they were a great use of stale bread. 

“And this tomato stuff?” Purple had stripped her pants off, and was now nursing a glass of wine in her socks and spandex shorts. Her jacket and white undershirt from her formal uniform were still draped over her shoulders, unbuttoned to show a generous view of her cleavage that you were NOT looking at. You also did NOT notice that those shorts made her butt look phenomenal, even if it did jiggle temptingly. 

“Bruschetta.” Her lips were wine-stained, they looked plump and glossy. 

Maybe you shouldn’t have had two glasses of mead on an empty stomach.

“Mmmm I missed you so much captain.” she popped a slice of bread into her mouth and chewed with a look of bliss on her face. 

“I think it’s my cooking you really missed.” Your tone was dry, but a smile tugged at your lips. 

“Nooooo.” Purple extended her arms to you and with a dutiful sigh you wandered within grabbing distance. 

She tugged you between her legs and proceeded to wrap all four limbs around you. 

“I missed YOU captain, I missed you so much.” She buried her button nose into your neck. “You don’t smell like the shampoo I bought you anymore.” without even seeing her face you knew that she was pouting. 

“Well I was in corporate housing for a while.” She huffed.

“Corporate isn’t allowed to have you.” You stroked a hand along the back of her neck. 

“Never again.” She squeezed you tighter. 

“And no one else is allowed to have you either! You’re ours! Ours ours ours!” 

Your heart melted just a little at the sentiment. 

“For as long as you’ll have me.” 

“Even if you get a girlfriend?” 

“Even if I get a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, or a date friend. I’ll still be yours.” 

“Yaaaay!” she kicked her feet. “We gotta tell the others! Carry me captain we gotta go!” she kipped off the table and into your arms, perching on your hips. 

Well, you were done with the charcuterie board anyway. 

You carried purple into the cafeteria to the whistles and cheers of the lounging crew members. 

“Guys!” Purple waved frantically, leaning back and forcing you to grab her and reel to recover your balance. She wrapped her arms around your head and crushed your face to her chest, laughing. She was wearing perfume, something sweet and spicy. 

“The charcuterie board is ready in the kitchen if someone wants to get it!” your voice was muffled. 

“No! Guys! Guys! Captain likes dicks!” You choked on your own spit.

“Purple!”

“And tits, and all of the other things!” 

“Purple!” You protested, still trying to balance her but now flushed up to your hairline. “That’s not appropriate!” 

“Only thing that isn’t appropriate is how good you look in that formal uniform.” Black chimed in from where he sat on the couch, his third old fashioned in his hand. 

You flushed deeper. Stuttering over your words. 

Orange was sitting behind Black, practically holding him in her lap. 

“Where did the hat go?” She said, grabbing something off of the charcuterie board Blue set on the coffee table. “That was my favorite part.” She popped it into her mouth and moaned. “How do you make bread and cheese taste so good?"

Fuck, this was going to be a long night. 

You ended up piled into the same bed again, though how that happened was a little fuzzy.

You woke up before the ship alarm went off, feeling better rested than you had in...since before highschool. 

Sometime during the night you had rolled onto your back, and Black had somehow shifted to lay directly on top of your chest like a weighted blanket. He was still out cold.

“Hey.” You looked over to see that Green was watching you with a fond expression, he was draped directly on top of Blue, one of their arms thrown over his waist. You realized belatedly that you were using Blues’ other arm as a pseudo neck pillow. 

“Morning.” on your other side Purple was curled with her back facing the crook of your arm, holding your hand in one of hers. Her leg was thrown over the spooned bodies of Orange and Yellow. 

Yellow was drooling into her hair, she would kill him for that when he woke up. You lowered your voice farther into a whisper. 

“Couldn’t get up huh?” Green shrugged. 

“I tried, watch.” he started to lift himself up and Blue grumbled, throwing both of their legs around Greens’ body and smashing him back to their chest. You grinned. 

“They're too strong huh?” 

“Way too strong.” He slumped farther into the possessive hold. You could tell he was enjoying it. 

“They’re really warm though, aren't they?” The expression of satisfied bliss on his face told you all that you needed to know. 

“Like a space heater, or one of those warm socks of rice.” You stifled a giggle and looked at him incredulously. 

“A warm sock of rice?” He flushed.

“yeah, my mom used to do this thing whenever I got muscle spasms, she would put a sock full of rice in the microwave and it would be like a heating pack.” he seemed embarrassed.

“Why did you get muscle spasms?” 

“I was a decathlete up until my freshman year of law school.” 

“That’s incredible!” you whispered, grinning ear to ear. 

“Not really, I had to quit when my grades slipped in my second semester.” You wiggled your hand out from where it was trapped in between Black and your stomach, reaching toward Greens shoulder.

He caught your hand mid air and held it. 

“Well some of it obviously stuck, you eviscerated that guy in court yesterday.”

“You should tell that to my failing grade in civil procedure.” 

“Your grades slipped because you were doing something that you hated.” 

“It was a lawyer or a doctor, I chose the better option of the two.” 

“It was still miserable for you.” You flicked your thumb upwards and waved it, enticing him into a thumb-wrestling match. He took your invitation with a repressed chuckle. “What did you actually want to do?” You tucked his lanky thumb under yours and took a victory. 

“Write.”

You blinked. 

“Seriously?”

He smiled. 

“Seriously.” 

“A little ironic then, isn’t it?” You took your second point, he really sucked at thumb wrestling. 

Greens official title on the ship was Administration, he was your co-pilot, and helped you organize the streams of information that all of the other team members siphoned toward you; but he was also responsible for keeping a log of your experiences on the ship. Some of his daily summaries were impressive, he saw and described the beauty in simple things, from the planets you had passed to the character of the ship itself. 

Sometimes you read them when you couldn’t sleep, they weren’t boring, but they were soothing in the way that they told the world of your quests. He wrote each of you as great adventurers, heroes on a quest through the stars. The accounts were always written so earnestly that it was apparent he was not exaggerating, that was simply how he saw his crewmates. That was how he saw you too. 

“Ironic?” 

“That you came here and were able to do what you loved, I’ve seen the records.” He groaned. 

“I thought no one would bother to read those.” You pinned his thumb for the third time. 

“Why wouldn’t I? They’re entertaining.” He laughed at you, hushed so that he didn’t wake anyone. 

“Cause they’re just what happened that day.” You over at him. 

“Doesn’t matter, they’re beautiful.” He was silent, staring at you, then slowly reached forward and placed your entwined hands on your cheek. 

“Captain I-is it wrong that I don’t want to go back?” He gulped, you knew that he felt guilty about it, but...a lot was good about this world. Could you ever go back to the old one? To long hours of doing nothing and screaming customers and minimum wage that never seemed to add up to anything besides paying the bills. 

“No, I don’t know if I would choose to go back either.” Green was silent. 

“Captain I-” The alarm went off. You really needed to change that thing to something that was less reminiscent of a nuclear attack warning. 

A groan rippled through the pile of bodies that surrounded you. 

“Well good morning captain.” Black woke first, smirking at you from where he was cuddled to your chest, looking satisfied.

A little too pleased with himself.

He leaned in close to your face, his breath minty fresh despite the early hour. You hated him for that. 

“How did you sleep?”


	9. Dense as a neutron star (female version)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Its finally time. Red and the Crew start seeing eye to eye, a lil bit of porn (this one is the female version!). this will include female reader having sex with a male (non penetrative), a little pain-play and some mentions of body modification and marking.  
> trigger warning: xenophilia and a slight bit of non-con will be mentioned in a dream scene.  
> enjoy.
> 
> Note from the author: do not attempt the sex described in this chapter unless you are healthy and have good balance.

“ Captain Red!”

Your crew had NOT been happy with the early morning call time. In the wake of their hangovers that was perfectly understandable. 

You told them to hydrate properly. It was their fault for not listening to you. 

“Fleet Captain Renolds?” You were not expecting to see her again. “Good morning! How can I help you?” 

She waved off your nerves with a flick of her wrist. 

“No need to be like that captain, we’re peers.” She was wearing another immaculate uniform today, her hat tucked under her arm, this one was black, presumably the color of her uniform on her own ship. 

“That was some impressive maneuvering I saw on the station footage.” 

You let out a nervous laugh.

“Thank you Fleet-Captain.” 

“Thank me after you hear my offer.” whatever you were expecting, it was not that.

“Your offer?”

“Come work for me, piloting skills like that are wasted in commercial cargo, I want you on my transport team.” 

Your mouth hung open a little. 

“Your own ship, a fully trained crew, two days off a week instead of one, and a fifty percent pay raise.” 

...was this happening right now?

“You’re serious.”

“Dead serious, ship will be model T with a fully renovated living quarter.” 

A model T was a three person craft, and that gave you your answer. 

“I’m sorry, while I appreciate the offer, I won’t be able to accept.” 

She laughed.

“I figured, not many people would turn that down but I knew that you would, I figured that I would shoot while I could.” her eyes crinkled at the size of her grin. “You really care about that crew of yours don’t you?” 

You looked at the ground. 

“More than I ever have or will about anything.” 

She huffed, pulling her cap on with a fond smile on her face. 

“Shame.” 

“Natalia!” a cheerful voice broke the silence, it was another of the judges, Mori, waving her over from another ship across the landing bay. Her face softened the moment she saw him. 

“I’m on the way!” She started toward the ship, an older three person model. It was named the Moria, and the connection didn’t escape you. “Ah, and captain red?”

You looked back toward her. She tipped her hat to you with some kind of knowing sparkle to her eyes. 

“Condoms are species specific, you might want to put in an order now.” 

Huh? 

The Ramp closed behind you with a hiss and you deflated against the wall, your face hot from the permanent blush. 

“Alright, tethers are all clear!” You called out to your crew only to be met with complete silence. 

“Guys?” you wandered into the cafeteria, surprised when you saw that your team was in the kitchen. All of them. “Uh, are you okay?”

“What did she say to you?” Orange asked. She was near the center of the group, all of them lined up and facing you like they were holding an intervention. 

“What did who say to me?” 

“Captain Renolds.” they were staring at you intensely, you wouldn’t go so far as to call it a glare but it was pretty close. 

“She-uh, she offered me a job.” The room dropped ten degrees. 

“Oh, congratulations.” Orange clenched her fists. You didn’t like that, it meant she was upset. 

You were sure you looked as confused as you felt, sure you were offered a job, but you never said you took it.

“I didn’t take the job.” You clarified.

Just like that, everything changed. 

“You didn’t take the job?” 

“No.” 

Yellow slammed his hands on the counter. 

“Why the fuck not!?” He was breathing hard, his expression indignant. “She offered a fifty percent pay raise!” 

You let out a little laugh. 

“I’m not even going to ask how you know that.” they probably overheard part of your conversation and took it out of context. “I didn’t take the job because it was on a three person craft, I’m not going anywhere unless I can take all of you with me.” 

Green spoke, shaky. 

“You could have picked three of us.” 

“Uh no, I couldn’t have, how the hell would I choose between the most important people in my life.” 

Silence. Complete and utter silence. It was Yellow that shattered it. 

“Black, get your dibs or I will.” 

Black crossed the room, swept down, and kissed you full on the mouth.

You were paralyzed for a good five seconds, but when his tongue swept across your bottom lip you had two distinct thoughts. 

One was ‘oh, he has a tongue piercing, how did I not know that?’ 

The second was ‘UUnnjgalngdajlasnkndjahglejgladnbslap’ as your brain melted out of your ears and you did the one thing that you had wanted to do since your first week on the ship.

You dug a hand in the back of his ridiculously smooth black hair and did your damndest to kiss him back. 

It wasn’t like you were new to this, but it had been a very long time. You managed well enough, sucking on his tongue and nipping on his lower lip. It was only when Black slipped his hand up to the zipper of your coveralls that you were ripped away from him. 

“Hey! You have dibs on the first kiss but that’s it! I pulled the shortest straw for sex!” It was Yellow, one of his hands on Blacks chest and the other on yours, covering the section of skin that Black revealed earlier. 

“It wouldn’t be sex, just a little heavy petting. Besides-” Black leaned in so he was a fraction of an inch from Yellow's face. “You could join us if you asked nicely.” Then he pecked Yellow right on the lips.

Was this a dream?

“I got second dibs on kissing!” Purple came closer, puckering her lips. You shrugged, tugged her closer, and kissed the breath right out of her. 

When you got dizzy you pulled away, fully prepared to wake up in bed. It didn’t happen. 

“Crap!” you exclaimed. “We’re fifteen minuets late for departure!” you rushed off to navigation. “Blue! Prime the thrusters! We take off in ten!” 

You had some time to think about it, and you were sure that this was not a dream. It couldn’t be because a dream would have ended, and would not continue through the working hours of the day. 

That meant that Black and Purple had both kissed you, and by the looks of things, the rest of the crew had been waiting for their turn. They were also clearly kissing one another, Yellow didn’t seem too mad about that peck. 

You turned to green in the seat beside you. Your arms crossed. 

“That time when I went to go find Blue, they were fucking Yellow in electrical weren’t they?” He blushed bright red. 

“Captain, can’t we talk about this when we’re off the clock.” You pursed your lips, and with a few clicks of your mouse you clocked out, flipping the switch that sent the ship into a fixed course for the night. 

“Alright, I'm clocked out.” He slowly went through the motions of logging off, obviously stalling. You were patient, waiting for him to finish without saying a word. 

“Spill.” when he was done you demanded answers. “Were they fucking?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve all been trying to get into my pants this whole time.” 

“Since day one, yeah.” 

“And I was just too dense to figure it out.”

“Denser than a neutron star.” You nodded. 

“I see.” You leaned over and tugged Green toward you until you were right in his face, lips brushing together. “Does that mean I can kiss you too?”

“Y-yeah.” you did. Each kiss you had with your crew had been different. Purples had been fun and joyous like the memory of strawberry lemonade in the summer, Blacks hit you like a bus and this one- this one was soft and calm. You had a feeling that Green didn’t kiss someone easily, so you made it gentle and deep. 

A soft press of lips, feathering your tongue against the seam of his lips, absorbing the tiny moan that he made when your canine sunk into his bottom lip. 

When you finally pulled away his hair was falling out of his braid and his lips were swollen. He was frozen and his eyes had a bit of awe in them. 

If you could kiss him silly you bet the others could kiss him stupid. You would like to see that. 

“Hey that reminds me.” You stood and offered Green your hand. “Black picked chicken pot-pie for his meal, if we want to have it ready by seven we better put it in the oven now, want to help me make dessert?” 

“Dessert?” he sounded unsure, but took your hand anyway. 

“Yeah, brownies.” 

The brownies went over well, exactly as you planned. 

“Alright, we need to talk.'' The dessert was just to soften your team up, you felt bad about using the tactic, but when everyone had a belly full of delicious food they were a lot more likely to sit still and fade smoothly into a food coma. They were soft and pliant and actually might listen to you. 

You should have probably phrased your opening question differently, at the dreaded ‘we need to talk’ they were immediately on their guards. 

“It’s nothing bad I promise!” They relaxed back into their chairs around the dinner table. “I just want to know how long this has been going on?” aaaaand back to the tense environment. 

“I don’t know-” Orange started talking. 

“Orange.” Green interrupted her. “Captain knows.” 

Orange hid her face in her hands. 

“Guys I’m not mad” you explained. “I’m not even disappointed, I just want to know.” 

“It was the first week on the ship.” Black explained. 

“Well funny story,” Purple chimed in. “it actually started as an argument over who would get the next dinner choice, right after that first time you made enchiladas. Which turned out to be kind of a moot point because you assigned us days, which was the best way to deal with that hands down and proves why you’re-” 

“Purple.” Green gently reminds her. “You’re getting off track.” 

“Right, well then Black got his turn to propose a meal and he said-”

“I said I’d like the captain on a platter.” 

You groaned at Blacks wink. 

“That's awful.” He did not seem swayed. 

“You like it, captain.” 

He was right, you did, in fact, like it.

You waved at purple to continue her story.

“We all started protesting that, because you were so...I don’t think you know how impressive you were when you took that thing out of the airlock.” Purple sighed dreamily. “Like a superhero.”

“But with more blood-OW.” Yellow was cut off when Orange cuffed him over the head.

Black smirked and scrapped the last remnants of chocolate sauce from his plate. 

“They were all furious that I called dibs.” 

Everyone glared at him, his cheeky grin remaining nonchalant. 

“You saved me when I got stabbed, I should have gotten first dibs.” Orange pouted and presented her case.

“But you didn’t, I did.” Blue kicked you under the table, clearly aiming for Black but missing their mark completely. 

“Ow.” you said without a real bite. 

“Sorry captain.” Blue yawned, the extra large meal kicking in.

“It's fine, Black, you were saying?” 

“everyone else was freaking out about when I called dibs and we realized that we weren’t arguing about who would get you, we were arguing about what order we would get you in.” 

“Wasn’t that kind of presumptuous of you?” you asked.

Black gave you a hard stare.

“Captain, we’re sitting here now aren’t we?” 

You grimaced.

“That’s fair.” 

“There was sort of this moment when we all looked at each other and Blue said-” Black gave them a chance to chime in, but they had their eyes closed, clearly exhausted. “They said ‘hey, I like the captain, but I like you guys too, why are we fighting?’ and they did it with those puppy eyes and...well what are you supposed to say when they do that!”

You understood the sentiment, and sighed with a fond smile on your face. 

“Alright, I get it.” They all perked up “but-” aaaand back to zero again. “This whole dibs thing has to stop, at least with me.” You went into your captain's voice for a bit. “It makes me feel like I can’t show affection to you freely, and I think it implies that one person is more important than the others if there's a time table on who gets to spend time with them.”

They all stared at you until Black finally broke the silence.

“This-” He began. “Is why you’re the captain.” 

You blew him a kiss, because you could do that now. 

You were in the shower when someone drew the curtain. You twisted, not in any particular hurry. 

After all everyone on the ship had practically seen you naked anyway. 

“Captain.” It was Yellow, his face set in determination. 

“Yellow? What’s up?” 

“I know you don’t like dibs, but everyone else is getting drilled down into a surface right now while they wait for you to get out of the shower and I didn’t get my kiss yet, so pay up.” You chuckled. 

“Say please.” 

You knew his answer before he even opened his mouth. 

“Make me.” 

Yellow liked the water in the shower steaming hot, so hot that it practically stripped your skin off. You didn’t find that you minded it when he sucked at your neck and dug his nails into your back. 

“Fuck, do that harder.” It felt amazing when he raked his nails down your spine. 

“A little bit of a masochist captain?” He teased. 

You quirked an eyebrow, reached a hand down, and wrapped it around his dick a touch too tight. It was a risk, but earlier, when you nipped at the lobe of his ear, he had let out a sound that was downright wanton and his eyes had glazed over, going honey-gold for a moment.

Your risk paid off when he let out a whimper. Pulling himself together to bare his teeth at you just a moment too late. 

Before you went any further though, you had something to check.

“You got a safe word?” You asked. 

“I'll just tell you to stop.” 

“Perfect.” He yelped as you dug the fingers of your free hand behind his knee and hauled his leg off the ground, forcing him back and crowding him to the wall. 

His skin was slick against yours, the nipple piercings that you didn’t know he had brushing against your chest. 

You pressed your pelvises together and trapped his dick in between the hot press of your stomachs. The look on his face was so delicious your toes curled.

It was a lot less graceful than you would have liked, more rutting than anything else. 

That was partially because you were out of practice, but it was mostly because Yellow liked a bit of a fight with his sex. 

He bucked his hips with a hiss. His rhythm was random, and the impact of his bony hips against yours was so harsh that you immediately felt the telltale warmth of bruises spread under your skin. 

You responded with a wild grin, pressing him harder into the tile, and lifting with the hand under his knee with so much force that you actually took him off his feet. He pointed his toes to try reaching the ground and completely failed. 

You felt pretty sexy when his eyes widened as you lifted him.

“Holy-” he gasped, and the hands that had been trying to scratch your shoulders and shove at you changed to wrapping around your neck. Clutching you closer. 

His composure evaporated, his breath escalating into a pant. From where you had him pinned up on the wall you were directly facing his chest, at the perfect height to suckle at the black bar piercing in his left nipple. The right one was gold, a perfect pair to the dusty pink flush across his chest. 

“I think the gold looks better on you, it’s really pretty.” you flicked your tongue over it, biting gently. You left a hickey near it, purple and deep. 

He gasped above you as you scraped a nail gently over the vein on the underside of his dick. He shuttered, laced his fingers into your hair and fisted it, sending a shiver through your body and encouraging you to repeat the action with a little more force. 

“F-fuck you.” even as he said it, he wrapped the leg you weren’t holding around your hips, digging his heel insistently into your lower back. 

“You’re already doing that.”

He was real pretty when he came. His head tilted back against the shower wall, displaying the collar of hickies you gave him, his skin was dusty rose from the heat of the shower and his eyes fluttered closed, his hair slick to his neck and falling into his eyes. 

You brushed his long bangs out of the way, it might be time for him to have a haircut soon. 

“Hey, you good?” He leaned against you, his breath heavy against your neck. 

“Y-yeah.” He kept his legs wrapped around your waist, clinging to you. “next time I’m on top.” You let out a startled laugh and cradled his jaw in your hand, brushing a thumb against his bottom lip. At some point during your frantic kisses you had nipped it so hard it split. You pressed your lips the tiny cut, lingering at the corner of his mouth before slowly fethering your tongue into his mouth. He tasted like blood and brownies. 

“Deal.” 

You turned off the water and carried him out of the shower, setting him on the sink counter so that you could dry his hair and body, he looked blissed out, and in the reflection of the mirror you noticed that you hadn’t escaped unscathed either. 

Your lips were swollen, your hips were bruised, and some of the scratches on your back were red, maybe they had even been bleeding at one point (though they had stopped by the time you got out of the shower. 

You dried his body with a big, fluffy towel and draped a small towel over his shaggy hair. 

There were a lot of sweet, chaste kisses as you finished getting ready for bed. You brushed your teeth, put on some of the moisturizer Purple and Black bullied you into using (it actually felt really nice to apply it at the end of the day, so you dutifully kept up with it), and helped Yellow get into his night clothes. 

He was soft and pliant the whole time, yawning and sleepy. 

You smiled at the sight of him like that, cute, borderline angelic under the bathroom lights. 

“Did you floss?” 

“Mmhm.” he lifted his arms toward you. “Carry me.” 

“Up you go.” You huffed and obliged, lifting him into your arms. He had gotten cold already, even in the steam-filled bathroom. 

“The others are going to be so jealous.” 

You kissed his forehead. 

“I don’t want to make them jealous.” 

He burrowed farther into your neck, inhaling the smell of toothpaste and deodorant.

“I do, Black gets super possessive, he might fuck you in front of us.” 

Oh, that was...an interesting thought. 

You woke up in the middle of the night, in the dark, with your hands bound above your head. 

You could see the shadowy figures of your team around you, their eyes reflecting the scant amount of light that came from the crack under the door. 

Human eyes didn’t do that. 

You immediately started to struggle, but you couldn’t move beyond bucking at your restraints, they bit into your wrists and ankles. 

“No-no!” It was hopeless and you knew it, but you still begged the bodies that resembled your crew as they stepped forward. 

It was too dark to make out color, but you didn’t need that to identify your crew. You knew them by silhouette alone. It was green that took one of your feet, still trapped in it’s binding, and secured it to the bed with a clawed hand that dug furrows into the Achilles tendon at the back of your ankle. 

You felt something snap, the tendon coiling up under your skin as it was severed. 

You screamed in pain, but it was no use, the nails dug deeper until you finally gave in and stopped your fight, coming to a shaking stop as adrenaline made you lose control of your body. It hurt, it hurt so badly, but they ignored the visible tears that were starting to prick your eyes. 

Instead you felt one of them shove a hand down your pants, tearing them away even as you screamed. 

You didn’t want this, you didn’t want this if your team was just empty shells, staring up at you with smiles that didn't reach their eyes and too many teeth. 

Orange sunk her fingers into your shirt and tore it in two, leaving it handing off of your shoulders in scraps. 

She crawled onto the bed and hovered over you, staring at your underwear.

You looked away, you didn’t want to see it.

Blue put both of their hands on either side of your head and twisted it back to center, forcing you to look as Orange dipped downward and laved her tongue over the round of silver skin. 

You registered a flicker of confusion, then your mouth fell open in horror as the scarred skin parted, and a mouth emerged from your side, a tongue a foot long lolling out and teeth two inches long and razor sharp flexing. 

A terrible sound ripped out of you, and someone, Black you thought, shoved two fingers that were far too long in your mouth. You gagged, the tears of helplessness and fear from earlier spilling over as Orange began to suck the tongue from your side into her mouth and kiss it. 

You woke up and rolled off the bed, hitting the doorframe in your rush to leave the room. You made it as far as the bathroom and then threw up, shaking from adrenaline and drenched in sweat. 

You dry heaved over the toilet for almost an hour. You didn’t sleep again after that.


	10. Dense as a neutron star (male version)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Its finally time. Red and the Crew start seeing eye to eye, a lil bit of porn (this one is the male version!). this will include male reader having sex with a male (non penetrative), a little pain-play and some mentions of body modification and marking.  
> trigger warning: xenophilia and a slight bit of non-con will be mentioned in a dream scene.  
> enjoy.  
> Note from the author: do not attempt the sex described in this chapter unless you are healthy and have good balance.

“ Captain Red!”

Your crew had NOT been happy with the early morning call time. In the wake of their hangovers that was perfectly understandable. 

You told them to hydrate properly. It was their fault for not listening to you. 

“Fleet Captain Renolds?” You were not expecting to see her again. “Good morning! How can I help you?” 

She waved off your nerves with a flick of her wrist. 

“No need to be like that captain, we’re peers.” She was wearing another immaculate uniform today, her hat tucked under her arm, this one was black, presumably the color of her uniform on her own ship. 

“That was some impressive maneuvering I saw on the station footage.” 

You let out a nervous laugh.

“Thank you Fleet-Captain.” 

“Thank me after you hear my offer.” whatever you were expecting, it was not that.

“Your offer?”

“Come work for me, piloting skills like that are wasted in commercial cargo, I want you on my transport team.” 

Your mouth hung open a little. 

“Your own ship, a fully trained crew, two days off a week instead of one, and a fifty percent pay raise.” 

...was this happening right now?

“You’re serious.”

“Dead serious, ship will be model T with a fully renovated living quarter.” 

A model T was a three person craft, and that gave you your answer. 

“I’m sorry, while I appreciate the offer, I won’t be able to accept.” 

She laughed.

“I figured, not many people would turn that down but I knew that you would, I figured that I would shoot while I could.” her eyes crinkled at the size of her grin. “You really care about that crew of yours don’t you?” 

You looked at the ground. 

“More than I ever have or will about anything.” 

She huffed, pulling her cap on with a fond smile on her face. 

“Shame.” 

“Natalia!” a cheerful voice broke the silence, it was another of the judges, Mori, waving her over from another ship across the landing bay. Her face softened the moment she saw him. 

“I’m on the way!” She started toward the ship, an older three person model. It was named the Moria, and the connection didn’t escape you. “Ah, and captain red?”

You looked back toward her. She tipped her hat to you with some kind of knowing sparkle to her eyes. 

“Condoms are species specific, you might want to put in an order now.” 

Huh? 

The Ramp closed behind you with a hiss and you deflated against the wall, your face hot from the permanent blush. 

“Alright, tethers are all clear!” You called out to your crew only to be met with complete silence. 

“Guys?” you wandered into the cafeteria, surprised when you saw that your team was in the kitchen. All of them. “Uh, are you okay?”

“What did she say to you?” Orange asked. She was near the center of the group, all of them lined up and facing you like they were holding an intervention. 

“What did who say to me?” 

“Captain Renolds.” they were staring at you intensely, you wouldn’t go so far as to call it a glare but it was pretty close. 

“She-uh, she offered me a job.” The room dropped ten degrees. 

“Oh, congratulations.” Orange clenched her fists. You didn’t like that, it meant she was upset. 

You were sure you looked as confused as you felt, sure you were offered a job, but you never said you took it.

“I didn’t take the job.” You clarified.

Just like that, everything changed. 

“You didn’t take the job?” 

“No.” 

Yellow slammed his hands on the counter. 

“Why the fuck not!?” He was breathing hard, his expression indignant. “She offered a fifty percent pay raise!” 

You let out a little laugh. 

“I’m not even going to ask how you know that.” they probably overheard part of your conversation and took it out of context. “I didn’t take the job because it was on a three person craft, I’m not going anywhere unless I can take all of you with me.” 

Green spoke, shaky. 

“You could have picked three of us.” 

“Uh no, I couldn’t have, how the hell would I choose between the most important people in my life.” 

Silence. Complete and utter silence. It was Yellow that shattered it. 

“Black, get your dibs or I will.” 

Black crossed the room, swept down, and kissed you full on the mouth.

You were paralyzed for a good five seconds, but when his tongue swept across your bottom lip you had two distinct thoughts. 

One was ‘oh, he has a tongue piercing, how did I not know that?’ 

The second was ‘UUnnjgalngdajlasnkndjahglejgladnbslap’ as your brain melted out of your ears and you did the one thing that you had wanted to do since your first week on the ship.

You dug a hand in the back of his ridiculously smooth black hair and did your damndest to kiss him back. 

It wasn’t like you were new to this, but it had been a very long time. You managed well enough, sucking on his tongue and nipping on his lower lip. It was only when Black slipped his hand up to the zipper of your coveralls that you were ripped away from him. 

“Hey! You have dibs on the first kiss but that’s it! I pulled the shortest straw for sex!” It was Yellow, one of his hands on Blacks chest and the other on yours, covering the section of skin that Black revealed earlier. 

“It wouldn’t be sex, just a little heavy petting. Besides-” Black leaned in so he was a fraction of an inch from Yellow's face. “You could join us if you asked nicely.” Then he pecked Yellow right on the lips.

Was this a dream?

“I got second dibs on kissing!” Purple came closer, puckering her lips. You shrugged, tugged her closer, and kissed the breath right out of her. 

When you got dizzy you pulled away, fully prepared to wake up in bed. It didn’t happen. 

“Crap!” you exclaimed. “We’re fifteen minuets late for departure!” you rushed off to navigation. “Blue! Prime the thrusters! We take off in ten!” 

You had some time to think about it, and you were sure that this was not a dream. It couldn’t be because a dream would have ended, and would not continue through the working hours of the day. 

That meant that Black and Purple had both kissed you, and by the looks of things, the rest of the crew had been waiting for their turn. They were also clearly kissing one another, Yellow didn’t seem too mad about that peck. 

You turned to green in the seat beside you. Your arms crossed. 

“That time when I went to go find Blue, they were fucking Yellow in electrical weren’t they?” He blushed bright red. 

“Captain, can’t we talk about this when we’re off the clock.” You pursed your lips, and with a few clicks of your mouse you clocked out, flipping the switch that sent the ship into a fixed course for the night. 

“Alright, I'm clocked out.” He slowly went through the motions of logging off, obviously stalling. You were patient, waiting for him to finish without saying a word. 

“Spill.” when he was done you demanded answers. “Were they fucking?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve all been trying to get into my pants this whole time.” 

“Since day one, yeah.” 

“And I was just too dense to figure it out.”

“Denser than a neutron star.” You nodded. 

“I see.” You leaned over and tugged Green toward you until you were right in his face, lips brushing together. “Does that mean I can kiss you too?”

“Y-yeah.” you did. Each kiss you had with your crew had been different. Purples had been fun and joyous like the memory of strawberry lemonade in the summer, Blacks hit you like a bus and this one- this one was soft and calm. You had a feeling that Green didn’t kiss someone easily, so you made it gentle and deep. 

A soft press of lips, feathering your tongue against the seam of his lips, absorbing the tiny moan that he made when your canine sunk into his bottom lip. 

When you finally pulled away his hair was falling out of his braid and his lips were swollen. He was frozen and his eyes had a bit of awe in them. 

If you could kiss him silly you bet the others could kiss him stupid. You would like to see that. 

“Hey that reminds me.” You stood and offered Green your hand. “Black picked chicken pot-pie for his meal, if we want to have it ready by seven we better put it in the oven now, want to help me make dessert?” 

“Dessert?” he sounded unsure, but took your hand anyway. 

“Yeah, brownies.” 

The brownies went over well, exactly as you planned. 

“Alright, we need to talk.'' The dessert was just to soften your team up, you felt bad about using the tactic, but when everyone had a belly full of delicious food they were a lot more likely to sit still and fade smoothly into a food coma. They were soft and pliant and actually might listen to you. 

You should have probably phrased your opening question differently, at the dreaded ‘we need to talk’ they were immediately on their guards. 

“It’s nothing bad I promise!” They relaxed back into their chairs around the dinner table. “I just want to know how long this has been going on?” aaaaand back to the tense environment. 

“I don’t know-” Orange started talking. 

“Orange.” Green interrupted her. “Captain knows.” 

Orange hid her face in her hands. 

“Guys I’m not mad” you explained. “I’m not even disappointed, I just want to know.” 

“It was the first week on the ship.” Black explained. 

“Well funny story,” Purple chimed in. “it actually started as an argument over who would get the next dinner choice, right after that first time you made enchiladas. Which turned out to be kind of a moot point because you assigned us days, which was the best way to deal with that hands down and proves why you’re-” 

“Purple.” Green gently reminds her. “You’re getting off track.” 

“Right, well then Black got his turn to propose a meal and he said-”

“I said I’d like the captain on a platter.” 

You groaned at Blacks wink. 

“That's awful.” He did not seem swayed. 

“You like it, captain.” 

He was right, you did, in fact, like it.

You waved at purple to continue her story.

“We all started protesting that, because you were so...I don’t think you know how impressive you were when you took that thing out of the airlock.” Purple sighed dreamily. “Like a superhero.”

“But with more blood-OW.” Yellow was cut off when Orange cuffed him over the head.

Black smirked and scrapped the last remnants of chocolate sauce from his plate. 

“They were all furious that I called dibs.” 

Everyone glared at him, his cheeky grin remaining nonchalant. 

“You saved me when I got stabbed, I should have gotten first dibs.” Orange pouted and presented her case.

“But you didn’t, I did.” Blue kicked you under the table, clearly aiming for Black but missing their mark completely. 

“Ow.” you said without a real bite. 

“Sorry captain.” Blue yawned, the extra large meal kicking in.

“It's fine, Black, you were saying?” 

“everyone else was freaking out about when I called dibs and we realized that we weren’t arguing about who would get you, we were arguing about what order we would get you in.” 

“Wasn’t that kind of presumptuous of you?” you asked.

Black gave you a hard stare.

“Captain, we’re sitting here now aren’t we?” 

You grimaced.

“That’s fair.” 

“There was sort of this moment when we all looked at each other and Blue said-” Black gave them a chance to chime in, but they had their eyes closed, clearly exhausted. “They said ‘hey, I like the captain, but I like you guys too, why are we fighting?’ and they did it with those puppy eyes and...well what are you supposed to say when they do that!”

You understood the sentiment, and sighed with a fond smile on your face. 

“Alright, I get it.” They all perked up “but-” aaaand back to zero again. “This whole dibs thing has to stop, at least with me.” You went into your captain's voice for a bit. “It makes me feel like I can’t show affection to you freely, and I think it implies that one person is more important than the others if there's a time table on who gets to spend time with them.”

They all stared at you until Black finally broke the silence.

“This-” He began. “Is why you’re the captain.” 

You blew him a kiss, because you could do that now. 

You were in the shower when someone drew the curtain. You twisted, not in any particular hurry. 

After all everyone on the ship had practically seen you naked anyway. 

“Captain.” It was Yellow, his face set in determination. 

“Yellow? What’s up?” 

“I know you don’t like dibs, but everyone else is getting drilled down into a surface right now while they wait for you to get out of the shower and I didn’t get my kiss yet, so pay up.” You chuckled. 

“Say please.” 

You knew his answer before he even opened his mouth. 

“Make me.” 

Yellow liked the water in the shower steaming hot, so hot that it practically stripped your skin off. You didn’t find that you minded it when he sucked at your neck and dug his nails into your back. 

“Fuck, do that harder.” It felt amazing when he raked his nails down your spine. 

“A little bit of a masochist captain?” He teased. 

You quirked an eyebrow, reached a hand down, and wrapped it around his dick a touch too tight. It was a risk, but earlier, when you nipped at the lobe of his ear, he had let out a sound that was downright wanton and his eyes had glazed over, going honey-gold for a moment.

Your risk paid off when he let out a whimper. Pulling himself together to bare his teeth at you just a moment too late. 

Before you went any further though, you had something to check.

“You got a safe word?” You asked. 

“I'll just tell you to stop.” 

“Perfect.” He yelped as you dug the fingers of your free hand behind his knee and hauled his leg off the ground, forcing him back and crowding him to the wall. 

His skin was slick against yours, the nipple piercings that you didn’t know he had brushing against your chest. 

You pressed your pelvises together and slid your dick into your grip beside his. It was hot and tight and the look on his face was so delicious your toes curled.

It was a lot less graceful than you would have liked, more rutting than anything else. 

That was partially because you were out of practice, but it was mostly because Yellow liked a bit of a fight with his sex. 

He bucked his hips with a hiss. His rhythm was random, and the impact of his bony hips against yours was so harsh that you immediately felt the telltale warmth of bruises spread under your skin. 

You responded with a wild grin, pressing him harder into the tile, and lifting with the hand under his knee with so much force that you actually took him off his feet. He pointed his toes to try reaching the ground and completely failed. 

You felt pretty sexy when his eyes widened as you lifted him.

“Holy-” he gasped, and the hands that had been trying to scratch your shoulders and shove at you changed to wrapping around your neck. Clutching you closer. 

His composure evaporated, his breath escalating into a pant. From where you had him pinned up on the wall you were directly facing his chest, at the perfect height to suckle at the black bar piercing in his left nipple. The right one was gold, a perfect pair to the dusty pink flush across his chest. 

“I think the gold looks better on you, it’s really pretty.” you flicked your tongue over it, biting gently. You left a hickey near it, purple and deep. 

He gasped above you as you scraped a nail gently over the vein on the underside of his dick. He laced his fingers into your hair and fisted it, sending a shiver through your body and encouraging you to repeat the action with a little more force. 

“F-fuck you.” even as he said it, he wrapped the leg you weren’t holding around your hips, digging his heel insistently into your lower back. 

“You’re already doing that.”

He was real pretty when he came. His head tilted back against the shower wall, displaying the collar of hickies you gave him, his skin was dusty rose from the heat of the shower and his eyes fluttered closed, his hair slick to his neck and falling into his eyes. 

You brushed his long bangs out of the way, it might be time for him to have a haircut soon. 

“Hey, you good?” He leaned against you, his breath heavy against your neck. 

“Y-yeah.” He kept his legs wrapped around your waist, clinging to you. “next time I’m on top.” You let out a startled laugh and cradled his jaw in your hand, brushing a thumb against his bottom lip. At some point during your frantic kisses you had nipped it so hard it split. You pressed your lips the tiny cut, lingering at the corner of his mouth before slowly feathering your tongue into his mouth. He tasted like blood and brownies. 

“Deal.” 

You turned off the water and carried him out of the shower, setting him on the sink counter so that you could dry his hair and body, he looked blissed out, and in the reflection of the mirror you noticed that you hadn’t escaped unscathed either. 

Your lips were swollen, your hips were bruised, and some of the scratches on your back were red, maybe they had even been bleeding at one point (though they had stopped by the time you got out of the shower. 

You dried his body with a big, fluffy towel and draped a small towel over his shaggy hair. 

There were a lot of sweet, chaste kisses as you finished getting ready for bed. You brushed your teeth, put on some of the moisturizer Purple and Black bullied you into using (it actually felt really nice to apply it at the end of the day, so you dutifully kept up with it), and helped Yellow get into his night clothes. 

He was soft and pliant the whole time, yawning and sleepy. 

You smiled at the sight of him like that, cute, borderline angelic under the bathroom lights. 

“Did you floss?” 

“Mmhm.” he lifted his arms toward you. “Carry me.” 

“Up you go.” You huffed and obliged, lifting him into your arms. He had gotten cold already, even in the steam-filled bathroom. 

“The others are going to be so jealous.” 

You kissed his forehead. 

“I don’t want to make them jealous.” 

He burrowed farther into your neck, inhaling the smell of toothpaste and deodorant.

“I do, Black gets super possessive, he might fuck you in front of us.” 

Oh, that was...an interesting thought. 

You woke up in the middle of the night, in the dark, with your hands bound above your head. 

You could see the shadowy figures of your team around you, their eyes reflecting the scant amount of light that came from the crack under the door. 

Human eyes didn’t do that. 

You immediately started to struggle, but you couldn’t move beyond bucking at your restraints, they bit into your wrists and ankles. 

“No-no!” It was hopeless and you knew it, but you still begged the bodies that resembled your crew as they stepped forward. 

It was too dark to make out color, but you didn’t need that to identify your crew. You knew them by silhouette alone. It was green that took one of your feet, still trapped in it’s binding, and secured it to the bed with a clawed hand that dug furrows into the Achilles tendon at the back of your ankle. 

You felt something snap, the tendon coiling up under your skin as it was severed. 

You screamed in pain, but it was no use, the nails dug deeper until you finally gave in and stopped your fight, coming to a shaking stop as adrenaline made you lose control of your body. It hurt, it hurt so badly, but they ignored the visible tears that were starting to prick your eyes. 

Instead you felt one of them shove a hand down your pants, tearing them away even as you screamed. 

You didn’t want this, you didn’t want this if your team was just empty shells, staring up at you with smiles that didn't reach their eyes and too many teeth. 

Orange sunk her fingers into your shirt and tore it in two, leaving it handing off of your shoulders in scraps. 

She crawled onto the bed and hovered over you, staring at your underwear.

You looked away, you didn’t want to see it.

Blue put both of their hands on either side of your head and twisted it back to center, forcing you to look as Orange dipped downward and laved her tongue over the round of silver skin. 

You registered a flicker of confusion, then your mouth fell open in horror as the scarred skin parted, and a mouth emerged from your side, a tongue a foot long lolling out and teeth two inches long and razor sharp flexing. 

A terrible sound ripped out of you, and someone, Black you thought, shoved two fingers that were far too long in your mouth. You gagged, the tears of helplessness and fear from earlier spilling over as Orange began to suck the tongue from your side into her mouth and kiss it. 

You woke up and rolled off the bed, hitting the doorframe in your rush to leave the room. You made it as far as the bathroom and then threw up, shaking from adrenaline and drenched in sweat. 

You dry heaved over the toilet for almost an hour. You didn’t sleep again after that.


	11. Working out the kinks.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE tell me what scene you want to read first I have TOO MANY IDEAS.   
> This is just a short chapter explaining the crews kinks.

Something was bound to go wrong in a machine with a lot of moving parts, and your crew were (metaphorically) a lot of moving parts. 

So it was to be expected that three weeks into your relationship something went wrong and now it was up to you (as the captain and somehow the relationship's designated parent) to fix things. 

The thing that went wrong was, unsurprisingly, related to sex. 

Sex was one of the things that had to be discussed in a relationship. Some people had libidos that didn’t match others, and some kinks didn’t necessarily align. Not everyone was going to be down for everything and you had failed to make your team have that conversation.

You reaped the consequences. 

Black had come to you in the middle of the day, devastated and not really doing the best mentally. His hands were shaking, he was calling himself a monster, and worst of all he wouldn’t look at you. 

It was one of the scariest moments of your life. 

You had known that something was wrong, but Black didn’t even want to touch you, and he was normally a very physically affectionate person. 

You eventually worked out of him that he had just got done with a scene and it hadn’t gone well. He had gotten caught up in the headspace and found himself wanting to do things that had not been agreed on, so he had safeworded and then ran full pelt out of the room. 

That left Green (the person on the other side of the scene) confused and upset, worried that he had done something to Black. 

The entire incident got mistranslated through the team and everyone ended up miserable and worried while you tried to pull Black out of the spiral he was in. 

It was not an easy process. He didn’t let you get anywhere near him, yet he followed you like a puppy when you tried to give him space. 

He freaked when Purple tried to come into the room, and that made her cry. You finally managed to get him to lay down with you after quite a bit of coaxing. 

It took his favorite juice box (yes you bought juice boxes for the team and you would not let anyone judge you for that), a soft blanket, and reading three chapters of an ancient story book called ‘Old Mother West Wind’ before he finally touched you, and even then it was just a tiny brush of your shoulders. 

You told him that whatever happened was okay, told him that he was so good for using his safe word and that you loved him. With plenty of words of affirmation betwixt requests he finally let you coax him into your arms. 

You put tiny braids in the shaggiest parts of his hair and he took a nap on your chest while you watched some mindless (but entertaining) cooking show where the contestants made halloween-themed displays of cake, sugar and pumpkin. 

You let everyone relax and recover for a few hours, and then called a team meeting over lunch. You made them toasted tuna sandwiches and broke out the potato chips. 

“Alright” you began “we obviously need to have a- “ 

Purple interrupted you. 

“Blue are you dipping those potato chips in ketchup?” 

Blue grinned up at everyone sheepishly. 

“It tastes like a french fry.” 

Purple tried it, the others did not look as convinced.

“You know that’s not bad.” 

You shook your head and got back on track.

“Team, focus for a second.” 

Purple blushed.

“Sorry.” she mumbled.

“It’s okay, but we need to talk about the incident that happened this morning.” Everyone poked at their food, they looked downtrodden. “It’s nothing to be worried or ashamed about guys, it’s to be expected.”

Green winced. 

“It is?”

“Yeah, we have a lot of people, and we never bothered to have a conversation about kinks and sex drive before, thats very important in any relationship, especially when you’re dating this many people.” The mood lightened. “I want everyone to go around and talk about their preferences, their hard boundaries, how often they typically want to have sex and the aftercare that works best for them.”

The table was completely silent. 

You sighed. 

“Do you want me to go first?” 

There was a mumble of agreement, everyone turning their attention toward you. 

“Well I’ve dabbled in bdsm before, I am a switch and enjoy pretty much everything as long as it's consensual and does not include the involvement of any party outside of my relationship, those are probably my hard boundaries. I have a pretty high sex drive, I could be good to go several days a week, and when I’m feeling it I can take part in long scenes or have sex several times a day. I like giving cuddles and affection as aftercare regardless of what side of a scene I am on.” 

You cleared your throat. 

“Any volunteers to go next?” 

Orange rose a shaky hand. 

“I can go? If you want?” 

You looked at her gratefully. 

“Yeah Orange, go ahead.” 

“Um, I like to be on top, but not in a dominant way, uh-I think it’s called a service top? But I also like being on the bottom sometimes. I don’t like hurting my partner at all, but I do like-” she flushed bright red “breathplay, like choking and being choked. I have a pretty average sex drive, maybe a few times a week? I like stretching and having snacks together as aftercare.” the table mumbled, but some of the crew looked particularly interested at her mentions of breathplay. 

You gesture to Yellow, waiting patiently for him to take his turn. He sighed.

“I’m a switch, I like knife play if I’m on the giving end and electricity on the receiving end. I like degradation and teasing, I am always in the mood, probably nine days out of ten and I just want physical attention as aftercare.” He sunk down in his seat. 

“Um” it was Greens turn “I like watching and being watched, I like being blindfolded and would like to try religious roleplaying and ritual sex.” that one was a surprise. “I’m more of a bottom, I am pretty much always up for sex but I don’t think I would activly seek someone out for sex, it would be too embarrassing. I like naps or a shower for aftercare.” that took a moment to process. 

“Okay, so instead of waiting for you to seek us out would you want us to check in on you?” 

He nodded, hiding his face in his hands. You smiled as Yellow slipped a hand around his back and gave him a squeeze, he cared even if he was shit at sharing it. 

“Blue, you’re up.” Blue, as always, grinned their sunshine smile and dove into the task face first. 

“I like primal play, like growling and biting and roleplaying that I am hunting someone. I like bondage too, but just when I’m the rigger. I am a stone top, I really don’t like being the bottom or having anyone touch what I have going on down there. Uh, it gives me dysphoria. I like walking around and talking for aftercare, maybe sharing a meal as sort of a cool-down from the activities. I don’t have a very high sex drive, maybe once or twice a week, but when I am in the mood I like to go for a long time.” 

Yellow snorted. 

“Just a long time? It feels like a marathon!” 

Blue’s eyes twinkled at him. 

“You liked it.” Yellow huffed, but there was such a fond look on his face even as he hurried the conversation forward by nudging Purple. 

“Hey it’s my turn? Alright!” she put her head on her hand and scrunched her face up as she thought. “I’m a bottom, I like bondage and this sounds kind of strange, but I really like dressing people up, it’s like my way of marking someone. oh-and giving praise! But I don’t like giving or receiving pain, I have an average sex drive and my favorite aftercare is cuddleing and giving my partner a massage. Or maybe making cookies!” 

It was Blacks turn now, and he seemed...devastated. Like he was facing execution. 

“I like-well I like bare handed impact play, and I like cleaning up whatever wounds I make as part of the scene, so I guess thats a medical kink? I’m into making someone be watched, more teasing than degredatiom and I like…” his hands clenched “I want to drug someone with paralitic agents and fuck them.” 

You nodded.

“Is it more for the somnophilia or for the control aspect?” 

He looked up at you in shock. 

“You’re not...grossed out?” 

You tilted your head. 

“Black, have you ever done this without someone's consent before.” 

He shook his head. 

“No-no I would never! Please, you have to believe me I-” you placed a hand over his on the table and squeezed. 

“Black, I believe you, I just wanted to reassure you that as long as everything is safe and consensual then it’s okay, it’s not anything to be ashamed of.” Someone had hurt him before, you could tell.

Whatever they had said may be indestructible, but the tongue they had been spoken with was not. You wanted to rip their tongue out and make them chew on it.

“I-” his voice stuttered and he took a deep breath to steady himself “thank you captain.” He finally started picking at his previously untouched plate. 

“It’s just common sense, now-” you turned to the rest of the table. “I know not everyone would be okay with everyone's kinks, so please establish that now.” You crossed your arms. “Personally I don’t have a complaint with anything that was said at the table, I would be down to participate in anything.” 

Blacks mouth dropped open. 

“Wait even-even mine?” 

You thought about it. Impact play, wound care, somnophilia and teasing? Yeah, you could to that.

“Yeah, I trust you, you like your hair braided as aftercare right, and phrases of affirmation?” 

“Uh-yeah.” 

Yellow Jumped in.

“What about knife play with me?” He said. 

You would be down for that.

“Yeah, nothing too deep, but light, pretty patterns on my hips or chest would be just fine.” Yellow tried to repress his smile, looking pleased and averting his gaze.

Blue raised their hand, and spoke when you gestured toward them.

“I would be down to do impact play, it kinda meshes with my fighting kink, and I don’t mind choking my partner or electricity play.” they grinned at Green with their sunshine smile “and blindfolding or religious roleplay? I could be a sexy demon.” Green Blushed and hid his face. “But I wouldn’t be okay with the somnophilia, sorry Black.” 

“I would try it!” Purple chirped “and I would love to be your prey sometimes Blue.” Blue leaned over to her and pecked her on the cheek. It was really cute. So cute that you audibly let out a sound of adoration at the display. 

Orange and Green looked petrified, both of them bright red and hiding their faces. You laughed at them and got a kick under the table from one of Oranges long legs. She brought her face out of her hands to glare at you. 

“I wouldn’t like electricity play, and I’m not good for impact play or somnophilia, but the...being watched or watching part I would like.” 

That was a little bit of a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. You looked toward Green. 

“Green, you have anything that's interesting or anything you don’t want to do?” 

He flushed deeper. 

“I don’t think I’d like degradation.” 

You tilted your head when he didn’t continue.

“That’s it? Do you like praise then?” 

“I-yeah.” 

You chuckled. 

“Alright then, Black, what about you?” 

He startled.

“I like being choked, and even though I mostly mentioned my kinks I’m really a huge fan of vanilla sex too.” 

He laughed to himself, running a finger over one of the tiny braids you left in his hair. 

You didn’t think it was funny. 

“Black, that is a great point.” you gazed evenly at the table. “Just because we have kinks doesn’t mean we will always be in the mood to partake in them, if one day you just want it soft and slow, then that's how it will be.” 

The table went silent. Everyone stared at you.

“What?” You asked, confused.

Yellow broke the silence.

“Damn it! When you say it like that you make just plain vanilla sex so much more appealing than the kinky stuff!” 

You gave him a lopsided smile, you could tease him, but you wouldn’t.

“That plain vanilla sex could also be branded as making love you know?” His mouth dropped open at your words “and I think that sounds like a pretty good way to pass the time.” 


	12. Black as my soul (so a cup of milk basically) (female version):

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Porn with Black by popular request. Warnings include somnophilia and consensual drug use during sex. I am currently taking requests for characters you would like to see in a scene. Also don't worry, the space pirate adventure part of this story isn't done yet, there's more non-porn scenes to come
> 
> Listen to sad sex by angie, trust me.  
> Has nothing to do with this chapter, it just makes me think about falling into bed with someone just as broken as I am and instead of fucking them it turns into making love to them. Just a thought.

It was a week after the awkward (but necessary) team kink negotiation that Black came to you. 

You were typing a delivery report, a headache throbbing behind your eyes as you stared at the screen for the second hour running. 

There was too much paperwork involved in delivering live animals to another planet. Honestly who cared about the confirmation of death certificate for the 829th out of 1000th gold fish that was part of a delivery to a race of sentient crab people who wanted them to make tiny sushi out of. 

NOT YOU!

It also didn’t help that the company fitness evaluations were coming up. Each member of the team had to complete a five kilometer run in under thirty minutes, and pass some standards for basic bodyweight exercises like pushups and squats. 

You would normally be fine after practicing for that but as it turned out, Yellow and Purple had never worked out before in their lives. You had dedicated an hour a day, every day for the past week teaching them the basics of the gym equipment and guiding them through a quick fitness regime. That, on top of your own preparations and being the person that Blue came to for one of their rare horny days left you sore in places you didn't know you could be sore in. 

Like seriously how did someone have that much stamina?

You also had gotten a total of ten hours of sleep over the last three days.

The first day had been an important delivery.

The second day you had stayed up with Blue.

And the third day had been spent doing the exact thing that you were doing now, paperwork. 

You finished the 1000th/1000th death certificate for those FUCKING goldfish and clocked out. 

You had ended up working through dinner, earlier you set the team up with a whole bunch of fixing for fajitas and then noped off to your desk and grinded through the rest of the work with the fuel of a caffeine pill and an extra large cup of water. 

You didn’t eat any fajitas because you thought you would only be another hour. 

Yeah, try four hours. 

It was almost eleven, and you were ravenous. 

You power everything down and stumble to the kitchen, pleased to see that you team had cleaned everything up. You hoped to find some leftovers in the fridge, but you were met with a row of almost empty shelves, you were long past due for a grocery trip. 

Instead, you grabbed a cup of dried noodles, added boiling water, and cracked an egg into it. 

Ah, processed carbs and sodium in their purest form, how lovely. 

While you ate, you started writing up a grocery list. 

“You should add sour cream to that.” You startled. 

“Gah-fuck!” you flinched backwards as an arm wrapped around you to point at the list you were making, the pencil flying out of your hand. 

That motion took you directly into someone's chest, and you looked up to see Black, smirking down at you. 

“A little jumpy there captain aren't you?” He squished your cheeks between his palms, leaving you trapped against his chest with your head tilted all the way back to look at him.

You sighed.

“I have to be with you sneaking around.” You stuck your tongue out at him. “One of these days you’re going to give me a heart attack.” 

“Aw cap,” he winked at you. “There's lots of better ways that I plan to make your heart skip a beat.” 

You made a pleased sound, rocking back into his body a little more. 

“I look forward to them.” 

You yawned, the food and fading caffeine making you feel warm and heavy. 

“Hey captain?” 

“Mmm?” 

“Can you open your mouth again for me?” 

You didn’t really think about it, you just let your mouth fall open. 

Black leaned down and sealed his mouth over yours, his tongue stud clicking against your teeth. 

It was an inverted kiss, but a deep one, flavored like cheap, salty ramen and the faint flavor of the premade sugar cookies that you helped Purple bake. 

He pulled away and ran the tips of his fingers from the spit-slick corner of your mouth down the column of your bare throat, slipping them under the collar of your coveralls and pushing his hand down until the pressure forced the zipper of the coveralls to part and reveal the red tank top you wore as underclothes. 

His hand came to a stop over your heart, pressing into your skin. Was he feeling your heartbeat?

He let out a long sigh and draped himself over you, wrapping his other arm around your waist. 

“Captain.” his head came to a rest on your shoulder, his low voice so soft that you felt it more than you heard it. Rumbling right into your ear. “Can I have you tonight?” 

Whatever exhaustion you felt before was balled up and thrown in the incinerator.

You laughed, trying to bite down the shudder that you felt rise in your bones. 

“Don’t you already have me?” You shrugged at his restricting arms where they were draped around you. His hands were so large that when his palm rested over your heart, his fingers reached your shoulder and his thumb rested at the base of your throat. 

At your teasing comment his thumb moved, first digging into your collar bone, then descending down the sore muscles of your pectoral and resting at the center of your sternum. When he pressed it inward your breath caught. The pain was dull, hot, and felt like a restriction on your breath when there was none. 

“Captain.” He purred the word in your ear. “I want to have you in the way I talked about the other day.” 

“Oh.” He wanted you paralyzed and at his mercy in the med bay cots. You let out a shaky laugh that was somewhere near panic and exhilaration. Your eyes glazed over at the anticipation of it. “Lead the way.”

His smile in that moment was terrifying. 

“I’m giving you Paralytic-24 through your IV, it only inhibits major motor function, so you’ll still be able to breathe and blink. I’m going to check on you through the scene, two blinks will be yes and one will be no okay?”

“Yeah that all sounds good.”

“It will start working in sixty seconds, and will last for about thirty minuets.” You swallowed heavily, perched on the side of a hospital cot with your overalls rolled down to your waist and your arm bared to Blacks eager fingers. 

He massaged the crook of your elbow, right over the sensitive skin of the newly placed IV.

“You’ve got great veins.” 

“You said that last time I was in here.” 

He smiled, black eyes a little dreamy.

“I hope this time it’s under better circumstances.” 

“Oh much better.” 

He finished securing your IV and leaned forward, eagerly receiving the kisses you gave him without contaminating his gloves. 

“Start the count Captain.” He pushed something into your IV. 

“Sixty seconds?”

“Sixty.” He pulled his gloves off and stood in front of you, parting your legs so that he could stand between them. “Hey.” 

You took your eyes off of the IV line taped down to your forearm and looked up at him. 

His hands came up to cradle either side of your face, and slowly, oh so slowly, he pressed his lips to yours. 

It was a hard, leisurely kiss, pressure and heat so intense that the moment between you turned crystalline. He pressed a hand to the small of your back and his other held your head as you slowly lost control of your limbs. You let it slip away willingly, it felt like he was kissing the soul out of your body. Like he was the grim reaper. 

He lowered you to the bed, your body falling in a gentle sprawl. Your eyes only remained opened a sliver, you were barely able to twitch your fingers. 

“Captain, captain.” He carded a hand through your hair and adjusted himself to lay over you, your noses brushing. “Can you hear me?”

Two blinks.

“You doing okay?” 

Two blinks. His smile was surprisingly awe struck. 

“I’m gonna start, I’ll check on you later alright?” 

Two blinks. He pressed a harsh, desperate kiss to your lips. From where he was between your legs you felt him against your inner thigh. He was already hard. 

The kiss was quick, he was too eager to linger. 

You felt him adjust you on the bed, pulling off your work boots as he did. You would chew him out later for slipping them off without untying them (it ruined the tongue of the shoe). He placed both of your hands above your head, pressing them down into the fabric of the sheets. 

You couldn’t move your body from where he placed you, but you were at the perfect angle to watch him through the sliver of your eyes as he started undressing you. 

You never really gave a lot of thought to undressing before sex. Clothes just got in the way unless you were going for a sloppy quickie and you normally just dropped everything and engaged your partner in a game of tongue tie. 

Not this time. 

He was slow as he rid you of your clothes, tugging the zipper of your coveralls down and then stripping them down your legs to devoid you of them entirely. He lifted one of your bare legs and pressed kisses to the bone protruding from the inside of your ankle and the interior of your knee. You would have shuddered if you could move. 

In just your tank top and your underwear, you felt more exposed than you ever had, even when you were completely naked you had never felt that vulnerable. 

That was the whole point of the scene. 

Black vanished for a moment, then reappeared and straddled your hips. He had taken off his shirt, leaving just his pajama bottoms falling low on his hips. In his hand he held a pair of silver scissors. 

He cut the tank top off your chest, your heart thundering at a thousand beats a minute as the cold surgical steel touched your skin. 

It was then that you realized how deeply Blacks medical kink reached. 

He had this strange (but still sexy somehow?) fascination with your joints. 

He rolled your ankles, straightened and bent your knees, kneaded at your shoulders and traced the place where each rib laid under your skin and muscles. 

It felt amazing, and if it wasn’t for the paralytic your breath would be heaving in your chest. As it was, the drugs kept your breathing steady and shallow, like you were sleeping. 

You let your eyes fall shut. 

Every touch felt more intense all at once, you could feel the brush of the ragged edges of his fingertips scratching against your skin, you could feel the temperature difference of each finger pad, and the sound of his breathing was suddenly louder and raspier. 

“Captain.” his voice was as low and rough as ever, velvet-deep as he slid his fingers under the band of your underwear and tugged it down. You hadn't noticed it, but you were already wet by the time the cool air of the med bay touched your core. 

“You’re so beautiful like this, so pliant for me.” his hands came up to rest on either side of your hips, he gave you a hard squeeze. 

“You’re always moving Captain, you run at a thousand miles a minute, all I ever wanted to do was get you to be this way for me. You’re so capable, I wanted you to be helpless since I saw you take control for the first time, all the way back on that first day.” 

He lifted one of your legs with a large hand under your knee and pressed it upwards until it was touching your shoulder. You weren’t nearly that flexible, the contortion was unnatural for you, but the burn added an element to the moment that made you float farther into the sensation of being touched and being unable to react to it. He traced a cold, lube covered finger around the rim of your entrance, nudging the tip in with agonizing leisure. 

“You’d let me do anything to you Captain, I bet I wouldn’t even need to make you this way.” 

He slid closer to you, pressing his hips against where yours were tilted upwards. 

“But it’s better like this isn’t it? I’m going to fuck you tonight, I’m going to get you so loose and wet that they’ll hardly be any resistance at all.” The rest of his finger edged it’s way inside. “It will be just like you are now, so relaxed and easy.” His lips pressed briefly on the center of your sternum. “You’ll wake up and you won’t even know what’s been done to you.” 

Oh, that was an experience. The fall of his breath against your chest, the tiny tweak he threw in to one of your nipples, and the matter-of-fact way that he talked all compiled to something incredible.

He arranged you carefully, legs bent and falling open on either side of him. He didn’t hold back when he started kneading into your legs, fingers gripping your inner thighs so tight that the contact stung. 

The pain felt amazing, a good distraction to the second finger tip nudging at the edge of your rim. You were a little surprised and disappointed when he released his grip on one of your legs, but that was quickly rectified when he brought his hand up to your clit.

From the position you were in, with your hips lifted and propped against his, legs falling to the sides and completely exposed to him, your clit was fully in the cold air. 

His warm thumb kneaded into the little lump of nerves.

If you could speak it would have pulled a gasp out of you. 

You didn’t even realize he had two fingers in until he scissored them and hit something that felt like being struck by lightning. 

“I bet you’re feeling good now.” He found the spot several more times, and his third finger eased inside, just the first knuckle. “I know you’ll feel so good when I get inside you.” 

Your head had fallen to the side, you had started drooling a bit, unable to stop yourself. One of his hands touched your face, swiping away the trickle of saliva falling from the corner of your mouth. He wrapped his fingers all the way around your jaw and straightened your head back to center. 

“Don’t worry” his thumb pried your mouth open, and he kissed you deep and open mouthed, like he was consuming you in some way. “I’ll do everything.” 

He retreated from your clit and his fingers left you with a slight squelch, a trickle of lube following. 

His dick felt a lot bigger than it looked, burning hot even through the condom. When did he have time to put that on?

“I should show you to the others like this Captain, maybe I should film it and we could all watch it together.” He didn’t bother with any rhythm, thrusts slow, deep, and erratic. He only ever withdrew a few inches at a time, resulting in the constant press of his dick inside you. 

“Look at you, letting me do this to you, enjoying it even.” he flicked your clit, the sudden burst of pleasure-pain painting red behind your eyelids.

Despite how much you wanted to, you couldn’t react to anything, the feeling was adrenaline and intoxication. 

“So helpless Captain” he crooned “but it’s okay, I’m here.” He suddenly pulled almost all the way out and then thrust in, grinding in tiny circles. It would have punched the air right out of you in any other situation. “I’ll be the only one hurting you, and that's okay right? If I’m the one hurting you then you’ll like it?”

He fisted your hair and forced you to nod your head. 

“I knew you would agree, Captain.”

He put his hand under each of your knees and fucking bent you in half. 

You stroked a hand across Blacks head, on the fifth braid of the evening. The scene had lasted a lot longer than planned, almost an hour.

You had been able to move for part of it, but you had laid perfectly still through everything. 

It had gotten fairly intense at the end; the side of your face was bruised from where he shoved it into the bed, you had a collar of bruises in the shapes of his fingertips and your hips were so stiff that you would probably have to sit on a cushion in the helm tomorrow. 

All in all, it was a successful scene.

Sure, the second orgasm had been a little painful with how soon he demanded it after the first one, but now that you were cleaned up and comfortable in the cot besides the one you had laid on a while ago, you felt amazing. 

“Black?”

He made a questioning sound from where he was pillowed against your chest. 

“Next time we should use more paralytic.” 

He stopped sucking on the straw to his cranberry juice box. 

“That eager to do it again Captain?” he probably meant to sound teasing, but there was just the tiniest bit of surprise in his voice. 

You hum in confirmation. 

“Yeah, we should invite someone next time, maybe someone could watch or maybe you could fix me up after Yellow cuts me up.” 

His arms tighten around you. 

“Isn’t aftercare supposed to be for you? How is it that you’re making me feel so much better?” 

You sighed and lifted his face from your chest. 

“That’s not how it works, who told you that was how it worked?” 

“No one did.” 

Maybe not directly, but these ideas definitely came from somewhere. 

You pressed a kiss to his forehead 

“Whoever it was, they lied.” 

He was quiet for a bit. 

“Can you read another chapter of that storybook to me? The really old one?” 

Warmth bloomed in your chest. 

“Of course, love.” he seemed to like that nickname.


	13. Black as my soul (so a cup of milk basically) (Male version):

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Porn with Black by popular request. Warnings include somnophilia and consensual drug use during sex. I am currently taking requests for characters you would like to see in a scene. Also don't worry, the space pirate adventure part of this story isn't done yet, there's more non-porn scenes to come
> 
> Listen to sad sex by angie, trust me.  
> Has nothing to do with this chapter, it just makes me think about falling into bed with someone just as broken as I am and instead of fucking them it turns into making love to them. Just a thought. 

It was a week after the awkward (but necessary) team kink negotiation that Black came to you. 

You were typing a delivery report, a headache throbbing behind your eyes as you stared at the screen for the second hour running. 

There was too much paperwork involved in delivering live animals to another planet. Honestly who cared about the confirmation of death certificate for the 829th out of 1000th gold fish that was part of a delivery to a race of sentient crab people who wanted them to make tiny sushi out of. 

NOT YOU!

It also didn’t help that the company fitness evaluations were coming up. Each member of the team had to complete a five kilometer run in under thirty minutes, and pass some standards for basic bodyweight exercises like pushups and squats. 

You would normally be fine after practicing for that but as it turned out, Yellow and Purple had never worked out before in their lives. You had dedicated an hour a day, every day for the past week teaching them the basics of the gym equipment and guiding them through a quick fitness regime. That, on top of your own preparations and being the person that Blue came to for one of their rare horny days left you sore in places you didn't know you could be sore in. 

Like seriously how did someone have that much stamina?

You also had gotten a total of ten hours of sleep over the last three days.

The first day had been an important delivery.

The second day you had stayed up with Blue.

And the third day had been spent doing the exact thing that you were doing now, paperwork. 

You finished the 1000th/1000th death certificate for those FUCKING goldfish and clocked out. 

You had ended up working through dinner, earlier you set the team up with a whole bunch of fixing for fajitas and then noped off to your desk and grinded through the rest of the work with the fuel of a caffeine pill and an extra large cup of water. 

You didn’t eat any fajitas because you thought you would only be another hour. 

Yeah, try four hours. 

It was almost eleven, and you were ravenous. 

You power everything down and stumble to the kitchen, pleased to see that you team had cleaned everything up. You hoped to find some leftovers in the fridge, but you were met with a row of almost empty shelves, you were long past due for a grocery trip. 

Instead, you grabbed a cup of dried noodles, added boiling water, and cracked an egg into it. 

Ah, processed carbs and sodium in their purest form, how lovely. 

While you ate, you started writing up a grocery list. 

“You should add sour cream to that.” You startled. 

“Gah-fuck!” you flinched backwards as an arm wrapped around you to point at the list you were making, the pencil flying out of your hand. 

That motion took you directly into someone's chest, and you looked up to see Black, smirking down at you. 

“A little jumpy there captain aren't you?” He squished your cheeks between his palms, leaving you trapped against his chest with your head tilted all the way back to look at him.

You sighed.

“I have to be with you sneaking around.” You stuck your tongue out at him. “One of these days you’re going to give me a heart attack.” 

“Aw cap,” he winked at you. “There's lots of better ways that I plan to make your heart skip a beat.” 

You made a pleased sound, rocking back into his body a little more. 

“I look forward to them.” 

You yawned, the food and fading caffeine making you feel warm and heavy. 

“Hey captain?” 

“Mmm?” 

“Can you open your mouth again for me?” 

You didn’t really think about it, you just let your mouth fall open. 

Black leaned down and sealed his mouth over yours, his tongue stud clicking against your teeth. 

It was an inverted kiss, but a deep one, flavored like cheap, salty ramen and the faint flavor of the premade sugar cookies that you helped Purple bake. 

He pulled away and ran the tips of his fingers from the spit-slick corner of your mouth down the column of your bare throat, slipping them under the collar of your coveralls and pushing his hand down until the pressure forced the zipper of the coveralls to part and reveal the red tank top you wore as underclothes. 

His hand came to a stop over your heart, pressing into your skin. Was he feeling your heartbeat?

He let out a long sigh and draped himself over you, wrapping his other arm around your waist. 

“Captain.” his head came to a rest on your shoulder, his low voice so soft that you felt it more than you heard it. Rumbling right into your ear. “Can I have you tonight?” 

Whatever exhaustion you felt before was balled up and thrown in the incinerator.

You laughed, trying to bite down the shudder that you felt rise in your bones. 

“Don’t you already have me?” You shrugged at his restricting arms where they were draped around you. His hands were so large that when his palm rested over your heart, his fingers reached your shoulder and his thumb rested at the base of your throat. 

At your teasing comment his thumb moved, first digging into your collar bone, then descending down the sore muscles of your pectoral and resting at the center of your sternum. When he pressed it inward your breath caught. The pain was dull, hot, and felt like a restriction on your breath when there was none. 

“Captain.” He purred the word in your ear. “I want to have you in the way I talked about the other day.” 

“Oh.” He wanted you paralyzed and at his mercy in the med bay cots. You let out a shaky laugh that was somewhere near panic and exhilaration. Your eyes glazed over at the anticipation of it. “Lead the way.”

His smile in that moment was terrifying. 

“I’m giving you Paralytic-24 through your IV, it only inhibits major motor function, so you’ll still be able to breathe and blink. I’m going to check on you through the scene, two blinks will be yes and one will be no okay?”

“Yeah that all sounds good.”

“It will start working in sixty seconds, and will last for about thirty minuets.” You swallowed heavily, perched on the side of a hospital cot with your overalls rolled down to your waist and your arm bared to Blacks eager fingers. 

He massaged the crook of your elbow, right over the sensitive skin of the newly placed IV.

“You’ve got great veins.” 

“You said that last time I was in here.” 

He smiled, black eyes a little dreamy.

“I hope this time it’s under better circumstances.” 

“Oh much better.” 

He finished securing your IV and leaned forward, eagerly receiving the kisses you gave him without contaminating his gloves. 

“Start the count Captain.” He pushed something into your IV. 

“Sixty seconds?”

“Sixty.” He pulled his gloves off and stood in front of you, parting your legs so that he could stand between them. “Hey.” 

You took your eyes off of the IV line taped down to your forearm and looked up at him. 

His hands came up to cradle either side of your face, and slowly, oh so slowly, he pressed his lips to yours. 

It was a hard, leisurely kiss, pressure and heat so intense that the moment between you turned crystalline. He pressed a hand to the small of your back and his other held your head as you slowly lost control of your limbs. You let it slip away willingly, it felt like he was kissing the soul out of your body. Like he was the grim reaper. 

He lowered you to the bed, your body falling in a gentle sprawl. Your eyes only remained opened a sliver, you were barely able to twitch your fingers. 

“Captain, captain.” He carded a hand through your hair and adjusted himself to lay over you, your noses brushing. “Can you hear me?”

Two blinks.

“You doing okay?” 

Two blinks. His smile was surprisingly awe struck. 

“I’m gonna start, I’ll check on you later alright?” 

Two blinks. He pressed a harsh, desperate kiss to your lips. From where he was between your legs you felt him against your inner thigh. He was already hard. 

The kiss was quick, he was too eager to linger. 

You felt him adjust you on the bed, pulling off your work boots as he did. You would chew him out later for slipping them off without untying them (it ruined the tongue of the shoe). He placed both of your hands above your head, pressing them down into the fabric of the sheets. 

You couldn’t move your body from where he placed you, but you were at the perfect angle to watch him through the sliver of your eyes as he started undressing you. 

You never really gave a lot of thought to undressing before sex. Clothes just got in the way unless you were going for a sloppy quickie and you normally just dropped everything and engaged your partner in a game of tongue tie. 

Not this time. 

He was slow as he rid you of your clothes, tugging the zipper of your coveralls down and then stripping them down your legs to devoid you of them entirely. He lifted one of your bare legs and pressed kisses to the bone protruding from the inside of your ankle and the interior of your knee. You would have shuddered if you could move. 

In just your tank top and your underwear, you felt more exposed than you ever had, even when you were completely naked you had never felt that vulnerable. 

That was the whole point of the scene. 

Black vanished for a moment, then reappeared and straddled your hips. He had taken off his shirt, leaving just his pajama bottoms falling low on his hips. In his hand he held a pair of silver scissors. 

He cut the tank top off your chest, your heart thundering at a thousand beats a minute as the cold surgical steel touched your skin. 

It was then that you realized how deeply Blacks medical kink reached. 

He had this strange (but still sexy somehow?) fascination with your joints. 

He rolled your ankles, straightened and bent your knees, kneaded at your shoulders and traced the place where each rib laid under your skin and muscles. 

It felt amazing, and if it wasn’t for the paralytic your breath would be heaving in your chest. As it was, the drugs kept your breathing steady and shallow, like you were sleeping. 

You let your eyes fall shut. 

Every touch felt more intense all at once, you could feel the brush of the ragged edges of his fingertips scratching against your skin, you could feel the temperature difference of each finger pad, and the sound of his breathing was suddenly louder and raspier. 

“Captain.” his voice was as low and rough as ever, velvet-deep as he slid his fingers under the band of your underwear and tugged it down. You hadn't noticed it, but you were already half hard by the time the cool air of the med bay touched your dick. 

“You’re so beautiful like this, so pliant for me.” his hands came up to rest on either side of your hips, he gave you a hard squeeze. 

“You’re always moving Captain, you run at a thousand miles a minute, all I ever wanted to do was get you to be this way for me. You’re so capable, I wanted you to be helpless since I saw you take control for the first time, all the way back on that first day.” 

He lifted one of your legs with a large hand under your knee and pressed it upwards until it was touching your shoulder. You weren’t nearly that flexible, the contortion was unnatural for you, but the burn added an element to the moment that made you float farther into the sensation of being touched and being unable to react to it. He traced a cold, lube covered finger around the rim of your ass, nudging the tip in with agonizing leisure. 

“Some other time I want to ride you like this” he slid closer to you, pressing his hips against where yours were tilted upwards. “But I’m going to fuck you tonight, I’m going to get you so loose and wet that they’ll hardly be any resistance at all.” The rest of his finger edged it’s way inside. “It will be just like you are now, so relaxed and easy.” His lips pressed briefly on the center of your sternum. “You’ll wake up and you won’t even know what’s been done to you.” 

Oh, that was an experience. The fall of his breath against your chest, the tiny tweak he threw in to one of your nipples, and the matter-of-fact way that he talked all compiled to something incredible.

He arranged you carefully, legs bent and falling open on either side of him. He didn’t hold back when he started kneading into your legs, fingers gripping your inner thighs so tight that the contact stung. 

The pain felt amazing, a good distraction to the second finger tip nudging at the edge of your rim. You were a little surprised and disappointed when he released his grip on one of your legs, but that was quickly rectified when he brought his hand up to your dick and took it in his hand.

From the position you were in, with your hips lifted and propped against his, legs falling to the sides and completely exposed to him, your cock rested on your stomach. It was fully hard and was already dampening. 

When he wrapped his hand around it he massaged a thumb along the vein on the underside, from the base all the way to the tip. If you could speak it would have pulled a gasp out of you. 

He repeated the motion several times, cupping your balls as he did. 

You didn’t even realize he had two fingers in until he scissored them and hit something that felt like being struck by lightning. 

“I found it.” his third finger eased inside, just the first knuckle. “I know you’ll feel so good when I get inside you.” 

Your head had fallen to the side, you had started drooling a bit, unable to stop yourself. One of his hands touched your face, swiping away the trickle of saliva falling from the corner of your mouth. He wrapped his fingers all the way around your jaw and straightened your head back to center. 

“Don’t worry” his thumb pried your mouth open, and he kissed you deep and open mouthed, like he was consuming you in some way. “I’ll do everything.” 

He let go of your cock and his fingers left you with a slight squelch, a trickle of lube following. 

His dick felt a lot bigger than it looked, burning hot even through the condom. When did he have time to put that on?

“I should show you to the others like this Captain, maybe I should film it and we could all watch it together.” He didn’t bother with any rhythm, thrusts slow, deep, and erratic. He only ever withdrew a few inches at a time, resulting in the constant press of his dick against your prostate. 

“Look at you, letting me do this to you, enjoying it even.” he flicked the tip of your cock, the sudden burst of pleasure-pain painting red behind your eyelids.

Despite how much you wanted to, you couldn’t react to anything, the feeling was adrenaline and intoxication. 

“So helpless Captain” he crooned “but it’s okay, I’m here.” He suddenly pulled almost all the way out and then thrust in, grinding in tiny circles. It would have punched the air right out of you in any other situation. “I’ll be the only one hurting you, and that's okay right? If I’m the one hurting you then you’ll like it?”

He fisted your hair and forced you to nod your head. 

“I knew you would agree captain.”

He put his hand under each of your knees and fucking bent you in half. 

You stroked a hand across Blacks head, on the fifth braid of the evening. The scene had lasted a lot longer than planned, almost an hour.

You had been able to move for part of it, but you had laid perfectly still through everything. 

It had gotten fairly intense at the end; the side of your face was bruised from where he shoved it into the bed, you had a collar of bruises in the shapes of his fingertips and your hips were so stiff that you would probably have to sit on a cushion in the helm tomorrow. 

All in all, it was a successful scene.

Sure, the second orgasm had been a little painful with how soon he demanded it after the first one, but now that you were cleaned up and comfortable in the cot besides the one you had laid on a while ago, you felt amazing. 

“Black?”

He made a questioning sound from where he was pillowed against your chest. 

“Next time you should totally ride me.” 

He stopped sucking on the straw to his cranberry juice box. 

“That eager to do it again Captain?” he probably meant to sound teasing, but there was just the tiniest bit of surprise in his voice. 

You hum in confirmation. 

“Yeah, we should invite someone next time, maybe someone could watch or maybe you could fix me up after Yellow cuts me up.” 

His arms tighten around you. 

“Isn’t aftercare supposed to be for you? How is it that you’re making me feel so much better?” 

You sighed and lifted his face from your chest. 

“That’s not how it works, who told you that was how it worked?” 

“No one did.” 

Maybe not directly, but these ideas definitely came from somewhere. 

You pressed a kiss to his forehead 

“Whoever it was, they lied.” 

He was quiet for a bit. 

“Can you read another chapter of that storybook to me? The really old one?” 

Warmth bloomed in your chest. 

“Of course, love.” he seemed to like that nickname.


	14. Purple is the Color of Science and Boy Howdy am I Color Blind (Male Version)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just cute porn and an existential break down with Purple, I haven't been able to write a lot so it's short.  
> This could be seen as mirror porn.

It was two hours after you had clocked out for the day and Purple was crying in navigation. Her head on the counter and three separate computer monitors on. A pad of paper was at her side. 

It looked like it had exploded all over her desk. 

“Purple?” you edged into the room carefully. 

“Captain?” she sniffed and whipped away her tears. “I’ve gotta tell you something.” 

You hated seeing her cry. 

“Take your time, can I come in?” 

She gave a watery attempt at a smile and nodded. You eased yourself beside her. It was the chair with the crooked seat and the wheel that was stuck. 

“You mind telling me what happened?” 

Her chest shook as she tried to hold in her sobs. You held your arms out.

She sagged into your hold, flopping against you and immediately falling deeper into a harsh, soul-shaking sob. It was devastating to witness. 

“It's okay to cry, just let it out.” you rubbed her back and waited patiently for her to finish. She needed some time, and you would be damned if she didn’t get it. 

When she finally settled down she stayed in the circle of your arms, breathing deeply. 

When her sniffles finally faded and she was ready, she pulled away. 

“Okay?” 

“Yeah captain, I’m okay.” She took a deep breath. “You know the multiverse theory right?”

“The parallel universe theory?” you reached across the table to retrieve a tissue from the box that was shoved into a crevice behind her monitors. You passed it over to her. 

“Thanks captain.” she blew her nose. Her lip began to tremble again. “Captain, we’re never going back home.” 

Your mouth fell open a little. 

“You-wait you figured out how we got here?”

“No, not-not really.” 

She explained that the universe that you came from and the universe that you were currently in had an ‘overlap’ of sorts. The ship that you currently piloted existed in your old universe in the form of a game, and in your new universe in the form of an actual ship.

She had done some calculations on how you could have moved spontaneously from one universe to another. 

It may as well have been morse code coming out of her mouth from how much you understood it. 

“Purple.” You had to stop her as she began to explain the specifics of transferring energy in a vacuum. “I appreciate the science behind this but I really can’t understand it quite as well as you can.” 

“Oh right, sorry Captain.” 

“It’s okay honey.” You soothed a hand across her shoulder. “Do you want to keep explaining, maybe a little more in layman's terms?” 

She looked up at you with bright, wide eyes.

“Honey?” 

“Oh-uh.” you scratched the back of your neck, uncertain. “Is that okay?” 

“Yeah, that’s okay.” Her eyes were still watery, but she let out a tiny smile, absentmindedly fiddling with her pen. It was one of those multicolored ones that had several ink cartridges in it. Orange had gotten it for her so that she could write color coded equations when she was running the navigation calculations. 

You didn’t understand all of the words that she was saying, but you understood the point that she was trying to get across.

She didn’t know how you ended up here. But she did know that whatever had happened was irreversible. Something about space time being self correcting and the mono-direction of space time through cosmic fabric tears. 

She had called space ‘flow’ as a scalar quantity instead of a vector quantity. You thought that meant it only had magnitude, but no real direction, and therefore no way to reverse itself (you weren’t sure though).

You sighed. You yourself didn’t want to go back, but for those in the party that left things behind when they made the jump...well you had hoped to give them a chance to return if they wanted to.

“We can never go back then? It’s definitive?” 

Purple started crying again, the silent tears of someone that had given up trying to fix their sadness. 

“It’s-It’s a one way street Captain.” 

You wrapped your arms around her again and held her tight. You wished you could make it okay.

“Hey.” you couldn’t just sit there and let Purple cry forever. “What do you say to some popcorn and a movie?” 

She sniffed. 

“Can we watch a nature documentary? About earth?” 

You smile at her. 

“Of course.” 

You were a little hesitant about the nature documentary. In your previous world, pollution was rampant, the ice caps were melting, and humans were killing the earth in a thousand ways. You wondered if that was still what was happening. It probably was (you didn’t have a lot of hope for humans in any universe). 

If it got too sad you would just watch an old children's movie.

You shuffled into the kitchen with Purple under your arm. 

“Ever made popcorn before?” you unbuttoned your cuffs and rolled up your sleeves. 

“Only the microwaved kind.” 

You grinned. Call you crazy, but no matter what universe you lived in you believed in two things: real maple syrup was superior over the fake crap, and microwave popcorn was a scam. Popcorn kernels were way cheaper. 

“Well you’re about to learn.” 

You showed her how to test the pan for heat, what oil to use, how to properly cover and shake at the same time. By the time you had a bowl of buttry, salted popcorn she had cracked a total of three smiles. You counted each one of them as a victory. You wandered over to the cupboard. 

“You want some candy too?” 

“Can you grab those tiny chocolate chips?” 

Another voice broke in from the doorway. 

“And those skull and crossbones sweet-tarts?” It was Yellow, arms crossed as he leaned against the door frame and tried to feign annoyance. 

“Do the skull and crossbones really make that much of a difference?”

“Yes, you heathen.” he glanced concerningly at Purple where she was clutching the bowl of popcorn. “Why didn’t I get to make popcorn with you?” 

You laughed and retrieved the candy. 

“I’ll teach you later if you grab the drinks.” 

You made your way out of the kitchen, throwing an arm around Purple as you went. 

The others all piled in after you, summoned by the smell of popcorn. 

Earth...earth was alive. It was alive and thriving and beautiful. It still grew crops, forests flourished, the whale population had recovered, the barrier reefs colors had returned from the harsh bleaching of previous years and could now be seen from space. Humans were infamous for returning to a planet that was considered deadly by many of their allies, and not just returning. 

It was traditional for humans to return to earth to have their children. Humans may not live their lives or raise their kids on earth, but birthing them there had become ingrained in culture. That was your culture now. 

It wasn’t some superiority thing either, children who were not born on earth were honored with the same experience as those that were. First steps on your home planet were sacred and beautiful. 

You were proud that mankind, the species capable of some of the nastiest, most horrific things imaginable had turned it around. Polar bears were still around for goodness sake!

Purple was in full on happy tears by the time the documentary wrapped up with beautiful shots of a First Steps ceremony under the warm colors of the deciduous forests in fall. Children in all arrays of traditional dress and of all different ages were ceremoniously placed, bare feet first, onto the planet's surface for the first time, their families grinning as they took their first steps on their homeworld. 

As you looked around, you realized that everyone else was crying too, some of them just teary-eyed and some of them with full on trails running down their faces. 

Orange wiped her tears away.

“That was really beautiful.” 

She sniffed into her sleeve, a watery smile on her face. 

Black reached over and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his chest.

“Not as beautiful as you.” He had managed to avoid full-on crying, but he was definitely close. 

She kissed him. It was adorable.

You sighed and picked up the popcorn bowls, bringing them back to the kitchen so that you could run them under hot water and get the butter off of them. 

It had occurred to you while watching the movie that your team had never been to earth in this dimension, they had never stepped foot on their own home planet, never had a first-steps ceremony to connect to it. 

It felt wrong somehow.

“Captain?” Purple edged out from the dark doorway. 

“Yeah?” 

“Can you come with me to the observatory for a second?” 

The observatory was a room on the ship that had a large, wall length glass window, it used to be for stellar navigation, but with the installation of the ship's hyperdrive it became redundant. You moved too fast for traditional navigation to be used. Now it was just a room to look at the stars as they passed. 

“Of course.” 

You dropped the dishes off, taking her extended hand and allowing yourself to be pulled away from the lights of the kitchen. 

The halls of the ship were dark, but you had tread them so many times on late nights that you knew them by heart. You took the lead, intertwining your fingers with Purples as you both moved further into the ship. 

The observatory was always beautiful, at that moment, it was lit with the dull glow of stars that passed so fast they appeared to be shooting stars. 

For a moment, you both just stood there, looking into the void. 

She ducked under your arm, nuzzling into your side. 

“What’s up Honey?” You were concerned, this wasn’t normal behavior. 

“We don’t belong here Captain.” 

“What? What do you mean? Of course we belong here.” You stroked your thumb along her cheek, she looked tormented. Her eyes were wide and pained, her brows pulled together and her bottom lip trembling. It wasn’t normal for her. 

It scared you. 

“No! This isn’t our world! That wasn’t our Earth! We don’t belong here!” 

She started crying.

Fuck. 

“Purple, Honey, breathe.” She gasped for air, sniffing. 

It was an understandable reaction. You were dumped into a strange world, left on your own and you just had to figure it out. 

You had all managed, but that didn’t mean that you didn’t feel the sudden transition. 

It was painful to feel like you were alone. 

Purple felt alone, felt like she wasn’t the same as the humans that lived in this universe, she felt like the only people she had or could ever have were the six others on the ship. 

That was an isolating feeling. 

“Oh Honey.” you pulled her in for a hug. “Of course this Earth is still our Earth. If you found out that my original dimension was different from your original dimension, would you think that I was any different from you?” 

She tucked her face into your neck. 

“No.” 

“It’s just like that, I don’t care where you came from, I just care that you are here now.” 

You pulled back from her so that you could look her in the eyes. 

“Does that make sense?” 

She cradled your face with her hands. 

“Call me honey again.” 

“Honey.” You ran a hand down her side and rested it on her hip. 

“Again.”

“Honey.” 

Her lips inched closer to yours. 

“One more time. 

“Honey.” You let the whisper fall on her lips just before you captured them, kissing her softly. 

It didn’t stay soft for long. It quickly became more frantic, picking up and becoming more fevered.

You slid a hand under her shirt and she broke away from you. 

“Sorry, I-” 

She pulled the shirt over her head. 

“Come closer.” 

You were pulled into her arms like she had a magnetic pull opposite to your own. 

You slid your hand downward and slid your thumbs under the waist of her shorts, pulling them down. 

She was dripping wet. 

You pulled back reluctantly.

“Hold on, I have a condom.” 

It was a bit of a fumble in between eager kisses, but you got the condom on and yourselves undressed. 

She was stunning. Wide hips, large breasts, thighs that looked like they would be a perfect place to rest your head. She was soft too, smooth under your fingertips. Like touching warm, moldable granite that had been polished to a fine shine. 

You nudged a finger at her entrance, making sure that there would be no pain when you got inside of her. 

She spun around in your hold, lifting her hips up and pressing her palms flat to the window. 

“Let’s do it like this.” 

Her eyes were heavy as she looked over her shoulder at you. 

“Alright.” You grabbed onto her hips gently and pressed yourself inside her. 

You shuddered, leaning forward to place a hand besides one of hers on the glass, your fingers brushing. 

You pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades and started to move. 

Her body was like a silk vice, pulling you in and holding you. 

You ran your free hand over her skin aimlessly, the soft curve of her stomach, the swell of her breasts and the plush flesh of her thighs. 

You gave one of her nipples a gentle tug and savored the sound she made, laying yourself across her back so that you could press a kiss to her neck.

“Ah!” she gasped “y-you gotta give me at least a couple more newtons of force Captain.”

You laughed. 

“I guess you would know best.” you gripped harder at her hips, pulling them back as you thrust. 

“I-I am a scientist after all.” 

“A very-” you kissed one of the ridges of her spine in tandem with your thrusts “sexy-” you did it again, enjoying how she shivered “scientist.” 

You bit her. 

“I bet you’d look great in a lab coat, mewling and making such pretty sounds on my dick.” 

“I-I’ll buy one next time we land.” 

“Naw I’ll just put in an order for one.” You reached down and gently rubbed the pad of your finger in circles over her clit. 

She started trembling a little, much to your delight.

You supported her a little more and crowded her further against the glass wall. You could see your own reflection, watching yourself fuck her was a novel experience that certainly did something for you. 

“Face forward.” you saw her endless eyes open in the mirror, watching you in the glass. 

The pace changed to become slow and deep as the mood shifted, the moment you met eyes it was like the air between you turned to plasma, so hot it seared. 

Purple spread her arms over the cool surface of the glass window, setting herself in a background of shooting stars. She looked at you in the reflection desperately. 

“This is all ours now, right captain?” 

You looked at her in awe. 

“Ours.” 


	15. Purple is the Color of Science and Boy Howdy am I Color Blind (Female Version)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just cute porn and an existential break down with Purple, I haven't been able to write a lot so it's short.  
> This could be seen as mirror porn.

It was two hours after you had clocked out for the day and Purple was crying in navigation. Her head on the counter and three separate computer monitors on. A pad of paper was at her side. 

It looked like it had exploded all over her desk. 

“Purple?” you edged into the room carefully. 

“Captain?” she sniffed and whipped away her tears. “I’ve gotta tell you something.” 

You hated seeing her cry. 

“Take your time, can I come in?” 

She gave a watery attempt at a smile and nodded. You eased yourself beside her. It was the chair with the crooked seat and the wheel that was stuck. 

“You mind telling me what happened?” 

Her chest shook as she tried to hold in her sobs. You held your arms out.

She sagged into your hold, flopping against you and immediately falling deeper into a harsh, soul-shaking sob. It was devastating to witness. 

“It's okay to cry, just let it out.” you rubbed her back and waited patiently for her to finish. She needed some time, and you would be damned if she didn’t get it. 

When she finally settled down she stayed in the circle of your arms, breathing deeply. 

When her sniffles finally faded and she was ready, she pulled away. 

“Okay?” 

“Yeah captain, I’m okay.” She took a deep breath. “You know the multiverse theory right?”

“The parallel universe theory?” you reached across the table to retrieve a tissue from the box that was shoved into a crevice behind her monitors. You passed it over to her. 

“Thanks captain.” she blew her nose. Her lip began to tremble again. “Captain, we’re never going back home.” 

Your mouth fell open a little. 

“You-wait you figured out how we got here?”

“No, not-not really.” 

She explained that the universe that you came from and the universe that you were currently in had an ‘overlap’ of sorts. The ship that you currently piloted existed in your old universe in the form of a game, and in your new universe in the form of an actual ship.

She had done some calculations on how you could have moved spontaneously from one universe to another. 

It may as well have been morse code coming out of her mouth from how much you understood it. 

“Purple.” You had to stop her as she began to explain the specifics of transferring energy in a vacuum. “I appreciate the science behind this but I really can’t understand it quite as well as you can.” 

“Oh right, sorry Captain.” 

“It’s okay honey.” You soothed a hand across her shoulder. “Do you want to keep explaining, maybe a little more in layman's terms?” 

She looked up at you with bright, wide eyes.

“Honey?” 

“Oh-uh.” you scratched the back of your neck, uncertain. “Is that okay?” 

“Yeah, that’s okay.” Her eyes were still watery, but she let out a tiny smile, absentmindedly fiddling with her pen. It was one of those multicolored ones that had several ink cartridges in it. Orange had gotten it for her so that she could write color coded equations when she was running the navigation calculations. 

You didn’t understand all of the words that she was saying, but you understood the point that she was trying to get across.

She didn’t know how you ended up here. But she did know that whatever had happened was irreversible. Something about space time being self correcting and the mono-direction of space time through cosmic fabric tears. 

She had called space ‘flow’ as a scalar quantity instead of a vector quantity. You thought that meant it only had magnitude, but no real direction, and therefore no way to reverse itself (you weren’t sure though).

You sighed. You yourself didn’t want to go back, but for those in the party that left things behind when they made the jump...well you had hoped to give them a chance to return if they wanted to.

“We can never go back then? It’s definitive?” 

Purple started crying again, the silent tears of someone that had given up trying to fix their sadness. 

“It’s-It’s a one way street Captain.” 

You wrapped your arms around her again and held her tight. You wished you could make it okay.

“Hey.” you couldn’t just sit there and let Purple cry forever. “What do you say to some popcorn and a movie?” 

She sniffed. 

“Can we watch a nature documentary? About earth?” 

You smile at her. 

“Of course.” 

You were a little hesitant about the nature documentary. In your previous world, pollution was rampant, the ice caps were melting, and humans were killing the earth in a thousand ways. You wondered if that was still what was happening. It probably was (you didn’t have a lot of hope for humans in any universe). 

If it got too sad you would just watch an old children's movie.

You shuffled into the kitchen with Purple under your arm. 

“Ever made popcorn before?” you unbuttoned your cuffs and rolled up your sleeves. 

“Only the microwaved kind.” 

You grinned. Call you crazy, but no matter what universe you lived in you believed in two things: real maple syrup was superior over the fake crap, and microwave popcorn was a scam. Popcorn kernels were way cheaper. 

“Well you’re about to learn.” 

You showed her how to test the pan for heat, what oil to use, how to properly cover and shake at the same time. By the time you had a bowl of buttry, salted popcorn she had cracked a total of three smiles. You counted each one of them as a victory. You wandered over to the cupboard. 

“You want some candy too?” 

“Can you grab those tiny chocolate chips?” 

Another voice broke in from the doorway. 

“And those skull and crossbones sweet-tarts?” It was Yellow, arms crossed as he leaned against the door frame and tried to feign annoyance. 

“Do the skull and crossbones really make that much of a difference?”

“Yes, you heathen.” he glanced concerningly at Purple where she was clutching the bowl of popcorn. “Why didn’t I get to make popcorn with you?” 

You laughed and retrieved the candy. 

“I’ll teach you later if you grab the drinks.” 

You made your way out of the kitchen, throwing an arm around Purple as you went. 

The others all piled in after you, summoned by the smell of popcorn. 

Earth...earth was alive. It was alive and thriving and beautiful. It still grew crops, forests flourished, the whale population had recovered, the barrier reefs colors had returned from the harsh bleaching of previous years and could now be seen from space. Humans were infamous for returning to a planet that was considered deadly by many of their allies, and not just returning. 

It was traditional for humans to return to earth to have their children. Humans may not live their lives or raise their kids on earth, but birthing them there had become ingrained in culture. That was your culture now. 

It wasn’t some superiority thing either, children who were not born on earth were honored with the same experience as those that were. First steps on your home planet were sacred and beautiful. 

You were proud that mankind, the species capable of some of the nastiest, most horrific things imaginable had turned it around. Polar bears were still around for goodness sake!

Purple was in full on happy tears by the time the documentary wrapped up with beautiful shots of a First Steps ceremony under the warm colors of the deciduous forests in fall. Children in all arrays of traditional dress and of all different ages were ceremoniously placed, bare feet first, onto the planet's surface for the first time, their families grinning as they took their first steps on their homeworld. 

As you looked around, you realized that everyone else was crying too, some of them just teary-eyed and some of them with full on trails running down their faces. 

Orange wiped her tears away.

“That was really beautiful.” 

She sniffed into her sleeve, a watery smile on her face. 

Black reached over and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his chest.

“Not as beautiful as you.” He had managed to avoid full-on crying, but he was definitely close. 

She kissed him. It was adorable.

You sighed and picked up the popcorn bowls, bringing them back to the kitchen so that you could run them under hot water and get the butter off of them. 

It had occurred to you while watching the movie that your team had never been to earth in this dimension, they had never stepped foot on their own home planet, never had a first-steps ceremony to connect to it. 

It felt wrong somehow.

“Captain?” Purple edged out from the dark doorway. 

“Yeah?” 

“Can you come with me to the observatory for a second?” 

The observatory was a room on the ship that had a large, wall length glass window, it used to be for stellar navigation, but with the installation of the ship's hyperdrive it became redundant. You moved too fast for traditional navigation to be used. Now it was just a room to look at the stars as they passed. 

“Of course.” 

You dropped the dishes off, taking her extended hand and allowing yourself to be pulled away from the lights of the kitchen. 

The halls of the ship were dark, but you had tread them so many times on late nights that you knew them by heart. You took the lead, intertwining your fingers with Purples as you both moved further into the ship. 

The observatory was always beautiful, at that moment, it was lit with the dull glow of stars that passed so fast they appeared to be shooting stars. 

For a moment, you both just stood there, looking into the void. 

She ducked under your arm, nuzzling into your side. 

“What’s up Honey?” You were concerned, this wasn’t normal behavior. 

“We don’t belong here Captain.” 

“What? What do you mean? Of course we belong here.” You stroked your thumb along her cheek, she looked tormented. Her eyes were wide and pained, her brows pulled together and her bottom lip trembling. It wasn’t normal for her. 

It scared you. 

“No! This isn’t our world! That wasn’t our Earth! We don’t belong here!” 

She started crying.

Fuck. 

“Purple, honey, breathe.” She gasped for air, sniffing. 

It was an understandable reaction. You were dumped into a strange world, left on your own and you just had to figure it out. 

You had all managed, but that didn’t mean that you didn’t feel the sudden transition. 

It was painful to feel like you were alone. 

Purple felt alone, felt like she wasn’t the same as the humans that lived in this universe, she felt like the only people she had or could ever have were the six others on the ship. 

That was an isolating feeling. 

“Oh Honey.” you pulled her in for a hug. “Of course this Earth is still our Earth. If you found out that my original dimension was different from your original dimension, would you think that I was any different from you?” 

She tucked her face into your neck. 

“No.” 

“It’s just like that, I don’t care where you came from, I just care that you are here now.” 

You pulled back from her so that you could look her in the eyes. 

“Does that make sense?” 

She cradled your face with her hands. 

“Call me honey again.” 

“Honey.” You ran a hand down her side and rested it on her hip. 

“Again.”

“Honey.” 

Her lips inched closer to yours. 

“One more time. 

“Honey.” You let the whisper fall on her lips just before you captured them, kissing her softly. 

It didn’t stay soft for long. It quickly became more frantic, picking up and becoming more fevered.

You slid a hand under her shirt and she broke away from you. 

“Sorry, I-” 

She pulled the shirt over her head. 

“Come closer.” 

You were pulled into her arms like she had a magnetic pull opposite to your own. 

You slid your hand downward and slid your thumbs under the waist of her shorts, pulling them down. 

She was dripping wet. 

You pulled back reluctantly.

“Hold on, I can get a strapon from the-”

“I hid one here this morning.”

Sure enough, there was a shoebox of materials behind one of the other crates.

Oh, she had planned ahead. 

It was a bit of a fumble in between eager kisses, but you got the harness of the strapon strapped to your hips and got yourselves undressed. 

She was stunning. Wide hips, large breasts, thighs that looked like they would be a perfect place to rest your head. She was soft too, smooth under your fingertips. Like touching warm, moldable granite that had been polished to a fine shine. 

You nudged a finger at her entrance, making sure that there would be no pain when you got inside of her. 

She spun around in your hold, lifting her hips up and pressing her palms flat to the window. 

“Let’s do it like this.” 

Her eyes were heavy as she looked over her shoulder at you. 

“Alright.” You grabbed onto her hips gently and pressed the tip of the strapon inside her. 

You started thrusting as soon as you felt her relax in your hold, giving you a subtle nod.

You kept the pace steady, leaning forward to place a hand besides one of hers on the glass, your fingers brushing. 

You pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades. Her body was like a silk vice, pulling you in and holding you. 

You ran your free hand over her skin aimlessly, the soft curve of her stomach, the swell of her breasts and the plush flesh of her thighs. 

You gave one of her nipples a gentle tug and savored the sound she made, laying yourself across her back so that you could press a kiss to her neck.

“Ah!” she gasped “y-you gotta give me at least a couple more newtons of force Captain.”

You laughed. 

“I guess you would know best.” you gripped harder at her hips, pulling them back as you thrust. 

“I-I am a scientist after all.” 

“A very-” you kissed one of the ridges of her spine in tandem with your thrusts “sexy-” you did it again, enjoying how she shivered “scientist.” 

You bit her. 

“I bet you’d look great in a lab coat, mewling and making such pretty sounds.” 

“I-I’ll buy one next time we land.” 

“Naw I’ll just put in an order for one.” You reached down and gently rubbed the pad of your finger in circles over her clit. 

She started trembling a little, much to your delight.

You supported her a little more and crowded her further against the glass wall. You could see your own reflection, watching yourself fuck her was a novel experience that certainly did something for you. 

“Face forward.” you saw her endless eyes open in the mirror, watching you in the glass. 

The pace changed to become slow and deep as the mood shifted, the moment you met eyes it was like the air between you turned to plasma, so hot it seared. 

Purple spread her arms over the cool surface of the glass window, setting herself in a background of shooting stars. She looked at you in the reflection desperately. 

“This is all ours now, right captain?” 

You looked at her in awe. 

“Ours.” 


	16. On Planets Respendant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHAH  
> oh no

You walked into the admin and froze.

White was on the other side of the room.

What the fuck, what the actual fuck!

It had a face. It had hair. It had matte white eyes that were watching you unblinkingly. 

“No.” You took a step back. “You’re dead, I flushed you out of the airlock you are DEAD!” You grabbed something off of the shelf beside you and threw it across the room. 

It hit the wall and broke apart. 

“Captain! What are you doing!” 

You startled. 

The thing you had thrown dropped to the ground in pieces, you realized belatedly that it was an old box of files that were now scattered over the entire room. 

Orange was standing in the doorway, looking disbelievingly at the mess on the ground. 

“I-I was-” 

It was gone, but you had been so sure that it was there only a moment ago, you had seen it clear as day.

“I just accidentally knocked into a shelf.” 

“Captain, you have got to be kidding me.” She knelt on the ground and scooped up a handful of papers. “I’m not Blue, I won’t believe something so dumb and you know it.”

“Hey Blue isn’t dumb!”

“They are gullible!” 

You sighed and knelt to pick up the papers with her. 

“I just, something scared me.” 

“What scared you? You’re not the kind of person to jump at shadows.” 

“I just thought I saw something, I guess I haven’t been sleeping well lately and I let it get to me.” 

“Captain.” She put her hand over yours. “This isn’t new, the nightmares, the all-nighters, the pacing, captain we’re all worried.”

“It’s nothing, I’ve been sleeping better anyway so-”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.” 

“You have NOT been sleeping better. You were up until three am last night and you got up at six, don’t you dare lie to me either because I am not a heavy sleeper and I was spooning you.” 

You chuckled. 

“I knew it was a mistake to cuddle up with you.” 

“I’ve been told I’m very warm.” 

“Like a space heater.” 

She scoffed at you. 

“Not as warm as Blue, they’ll make you sweat in sub zero temperatures.” 

“We save a lot on the heating bill with them around.” 

She burst into peals of laughter, squeezing your hand.

“Hey! Stop distracting me!” 

“Distracting you, I’m not distracting you, no distractions here.” 

She glared and you held your hands up in surrender. 

“You’re bleeding!”

You look at your raised hand, sure enough, some part of the box must have had a loose staple. Your hand was sliced open from the tip of your thumb to the center of your palm. 

“Oh, guess I am.” you pressed your hand into your shirt, staunching the flow of blood. 

“I’ll get Black!” she sprang to her feet, and was out of the room before you could stop her and tell her that your legs were just fine. 

You sighed and started walking after her, stepping over the pages that scattered all over the ground. 

Something caught your eye on one of them, a flash of red. 

You reached toward the page with your good hand, did you bleed more than you thought?

Your own face stared back at you from the paper. 

“Captain!” You stuffed the paper into your pocket. “Orange told me you were injured.” 

You sheepishly smiled and held out your hand. 

“It’s not that bad.”

“Bad enough to need stitches, come on, to the med bay we go.”

The paper burned a hole in your pocket all the way there. 

Argoro was a large planet on the far side of the far side of the Nugget galaxy.

The Nugget galaxy was named by the twenty six million inhabitants of Argoro (the only planet in the system to contain sentient life).

Why did they name the galaxy ‘Nugget’? Because humans had introduced them to the one Achilles heel of college students and elementary children. Dinosaur chicken nuggets. It sounded ridiculous, but those pre-shaped morsels of wonder and preservatives had actually saved over sixty percent of known life. 

The Argoro were a warring species, one that (before recent times) had been dangerous. They were a hive mind, without individuality and possessing only of the desire to kill, conquer, and destroy. 

However that also meant that if you convinced one of them of something, they all shared the sentiment. 

So what happened when a very frightened college student on a research vessel was accosted by three fully armored Argoro who insisted on knowing what smelled so good? Well he shared his dinosaur chicken nuggets. 

Taste had never been experienced by anyone of the Argoro, they must have had a connection to food similar to humans generations ago, but it had somehow been lost and all food was replaced with nutrient packets that probably had the taste and texture of rice paste. 

It was a given that at the first chicken nugget they were convinced that the maker of such wonder was destined to be their spouse. 

As far as you understood, that college student suddenly found himself with a planet of dangerous organisms convinced that they were in love with him. 

It had actually worked out pretty well. The species may have started out mindlessly worshiping him, but they eventually came to understand genuine love. 

Both parties had consented to marriage right after the college student finished his degree and thus a peaceful planet was born with a single human teaching the Argoro everything they needed to know to live an existence of exploration, farming, and actually living instead of just marching forward as an endless existence causing destruction. 

Lucky he was an agricultural research student.

They had all taken his last name, and now the entire species and their planet was named after ‘ Michail Argoro’.

That college student actually turned two hundred and eighty this year, but the Argoro had some really obsessive tendencies and...well they found a way to keep the love of their lives fresh and young. 

They found a way to grow him a new body like they grew theirs. 

That's what you were delivering. 

A body.

A freshly grown human body.

In a test tube, in a box, covered by canvas in your cargo hold.

“Captain, please tell me this feels wrong to you too.” Orange was chewing on her lip, glaring at the box with her arms crossed. 

You winced. 

“It certainly doesn’t feel like the good old days of delivering gummy worms.” 

Unlike the majority of your crew, Purple and Black were very excited about your newest cargo, and were working together to get the required scans and send them ahead to Argoro so any necessary adjustments could be made. 

Black placed his hand on the box, far too excited. 

“Actually captain this is one of the best advancements in human history!”

Purple chimed in. 

“Yeah, the Argoro used the science behind their collective memory to figure out how human memory is going to be stored! Isn’t that amazing!” 

“Even more amazing because there’s no physical changes to the brain!”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!” 

You and Orange glanced at each other, she looked just as worried as you felt. 

“No it’s not amazing, that shit is wack.” 

It was Yellow, looking put off, but not put off enough to stop munching on the pretzels in his hand. He had started gaining weight, it looked really good on him. Now that he ate a real breakfast to kickstart his morning he found himself actually getting hungry, and that man was in possession of a very healthy appetite. 

“Uh, hey Black?” You asked. 

He turned toward you with his eyes still sparkling. 

“Yeah?”

“We don’t have to do that do we?” You pointed toward the box. 

“Providing a body clone? No of course not.”

You let out a sigh of relief. 

“It’s only authorized for use on one person anyway.” 

That surprised you. 

“It’s only authorized for use on Michali Argoro?”

“Yeah.” 

“Why’s that?” 

“Well we may understand how human memory storage works, but we don’t know how to transfer them yet, the Argoro are the ones that can transfer the memories. They can absorb memories of those they attack through...uh they lay an egg in them and when that egg hatches that Argoro will know that the incubating body knows.” 

You blinked, completely baffled. 

“So they found a way to transfer those memories to another body instead of to a new Argoro? Through sex?” 

Black nodded. 

“Pretty much, as far as I understand they won’t do it to anyone else because they’re married and that would be cheating.” 

Well, that was certainly something. 

Purple sighed. 

“It’s strangely romantic, isn’t it?”

She scared you sometimes. 

Michali Argoro was married to the teenage mutant ninja turtles. He was married to twenty six million teenage mutant ninja turtles. 

They had hard carapaces, dark green skin covered in scales, and universally golden eyes that would have been intimidating if they weren’t complete goofs. 

And they were complete goofs. 

They were silly, cracking jokes as they led you to the meeting room and offering you snacks and tea. They set up a god damned tea party, and you were pretty sure that the cups were Alice in Wonderland themed. 

You guessed what they said was true. Love really did change people, they were so far from the warmongering species that they had been in the past that you found it hard to believe they had ever been so cruel. 

It was particularly hard to believe when they led their husband into the room on their arm. 

Michali Argoro was a splendidly aged man, around sixty years old and still light on his feet. His hair had gone salt and pepper silver and he seemed overjoyed walking in on the arm of one of his spouses arms. 

“Hello!” he offered you a hand “I am Michali.” 

“I am Captain Red, it’s nice to meet you.” He had a firm handshake. He reminded you a bit of the fit, middle aged single father that used to work as your manager, your coworkers described him as a DILF. You never figured out what that meant and you were not about to ask. 

“And these are some of my husbands! This is Yoshi, Sato, and Felix.” 

You had passed a lot of Argoro on the way there, they did tend to take slightly different forms, and the three beside Michali looked to be one of each. They were all huge, but Yoshi was the widest and most heavily built, while Felix had larger eyes and Sato was more slender and had longer legs. 

“Nice to meet you, do you all use male pronouns?” You always thought that it was polite to check. 

“Yes, we all do! He/him please!” Sato answered you with a peace sign, though he looked far more interested in the package that Blue had transported (with more care than you had ever seen them use to move a package). “How is the cargo?” 

You pulled up the information that Black and Purple had retrieved earlier on a tablet. 

“Our team performed scans just before the package left the ship.” You handed the tablet over. “Is there anything else that you need us to do?” 

Michali laughed. 

“Oh come now Captain, you can’t be in that much of a rush to leave? Stay and see the water flocks.” 

You blinked. 

“The what?” 

“The water flocks, this planet has a very special canyon, continuous wind is funneled so tightly that the water from a nearby river actually flows upwards like a geyser, we equipped the area with floating platforms so that people can freely dive into the airstream through the water, the wind lifts you back up to the place you jumped from. I have plenty of time to show you while my new body is incubating.” 

“Michali.” Yoshi had his arm interlocked with the human beside him (who looked positively diminutive in comparison) “are you sure you want to do that, your body is nearing sixty years and-” 

Michali gave his arm a gentle slap. 

“Stop being so uptight, I’m not going to break.” 

Yoshi did not look convinced. 

“Alright, but if you start feeling tired you have to tell me right away.” 

Michali rolled his eyes, but conceded with a fond smile. 

“Deal.” He pressed a kiss on his husband's cheek. 

You didn’t know how Yoshi managed to blush when he had scaled skin.

“That water thing sounds so cool!” Blues eyes had lit up when the water flocks had been mentioned. “Captain” they begged, “can we please go? Pretty please with sugar on top?” 

Uuugh why were you weak!

“Alright, we can go for a little bit.”

“Yes!”

“But we are not staying overnight! We’re on a schedule!” 

They gave a mock salute. 

“Roger that Captain.” 

They winked, they were not as good at it as Black was, but it was a close thing. They must have practiced.

“Bathing suit time!”

This had been a bad idea, this had been a very bad, no good, absolute shit idea.

You had given Purple an opportunity to dress the entire crew up. 

Someone needed to save you. 

“Come on captain, just try it on!” She thrust the third one of the day at you. You dutifully put it on. 

“That’s the one!” 

She had picked out a red suit for you (of course), you had to admit that this one made your butt look great. 

“Thanks Honey.” You gave her a kiss. “I’m gonna go finish the sandwiches.” You had a plan to make use of the day and pack a picnic.

“Send Green in! I want him to try this.” 

She was holding what appeared to be a lacy boxer and halter top combination. 

You gaped. 

“Purple, is that lingerie?”

She pressed her finger to her lips.

“Shhhh, Green doesn’t have to know, it’s basically a bathing suit.”

He would look very good with the lace against his skin. He would wear it too if Purple asked.

“Is it going to be ruined?” 

Purple grinned.

“Nope, it’s machine washable.” 

Well, you guessed you would be able to enjoy the view too.

“And with the previous dive from the gorgeous-” Black paused his commentary to press a kiss to Blue's hand where they were standing beside him. “Blue! We now turn to the one, the only, THE CAPTAIN! Can our illustrious leader pull and upset from thin air? To beat the triple backflip and twisty thing of our previous first place contestant? Only time will tell!” 

You gave a mock wave from your place, walking out to the end of the plank that acted as a diving board. Your crew all cheered from where they had their own platforms, all of them tethered to the ground with cables.

In front of you, a stream of wind and water rose high over your head. 

You were having a competition for the best dives and jumps off of the platforms. 

You launched yourself out into a swan dive, leading with your chest and plummeting through the air. 

The wind rushed around you, water streaming on your skin as you fell deep into the canyon. 

When the wind caught you, you used it’s upward thrust to pivot yourself into a backflip, turning twice until you were close enough to catch the edge of the platform you originally jumped off of with your hand. 

You held yourself like you were doing a handstand, then stuck the landing to the cheers of your crew. 

You turned toward where Michali and his husbands were sitting, on the judges platform. They had those little cards with numbers on them. 

Overall you got an average of an 8.25. Not enough to beat Blues solid 9. 

You shrugged and blew a kiss to Blue. They caught it. 

You should have seen it coming, you should have seen it coming and you should have DONE SOMETHING!

Michali had been trying the stunt you had accomplished earlier, when you grabbed the edge of your platform on the way up. 

He almost had it, but he had shifted too far back, too far under the platform. 

His head hit the edge of the wood with a sickening crack and the water streaming upward was suddenly intermingled with red droplets. 

You lunged forward as his husbands let out a shriek of pain that hurt to hear, flying through the air.

You reached Michalis' body and pulled him awkwardly into your arms. 

Your trajectory continued, slamming you into Michalis' platform. Under your feet it swayed, almost pitching you off of it as you tried to steady yourself and Michali.

His eyes weren’t opening. 

“Black! Black he’s not-oof!” something hit you hard enough to send you flying off of the platform and into open air, you ripped through the water flocks and then slammed into one of the outermost platforms, your momentum so great that as your back bent around the platform and your breath vacated your body, the tethering points on the platform tore out of their fasteners. 

You reached out for one of the (now loose) tethers, but missed and continued your path spiraling away from your team. 

You flew all the way to the far edge of the canyon and made impact with the net that bordered the safe section of the water flocks. 

The tether that you had snapped through earlier had been connected to that section of net, acting as a pulley to hold it taught. Without that tether the net was loose. 

It rolled you up and spit you out on the far side. 

You flew into the weak wind on the far side of the canyon. 

It was not enough to support your weight.

You fell. 


	17. Call me Shredder because I’m fighting the teenage mutant ninja turtles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is short, don't kill me please. Enjoy a healthy dose of badassery.  
> Disclaimer: while the techniques in this chapter may work you should NOT DO THEM.  
> TW: unknowing/accidental drug usage

Sometimes when you were younger you would dream about falling through the sky from a great height.

You always aimed for lakes in those dreams, as a young kid you believed that hitting the water instead of the ground would save your life. 

It was only once you got older that you realized hitting water at terminal velocity was equivalent to hitting concrete. Striking the water would break your femurs into your hips and you would die paralyzed, in great pain, and likely condemned to become food for the fish.

Luckily, when you fell over the edge of the canyon and started rushing toward the ground there were still a few strong updrafts that caught you. The gusts slowed you enough so that when you entered the water you didn’t die by splattering into a paste. Instead, you rocketed straight down through the water and made contact with a rocky river floor. 

The river was deep, but it was flowing very fast. It vanished back into the canyon you came from in a tight stream. It was so swift that it swept you forward and spun you around ass over teakettle. 

You didn’t want to be bashed to death on the canyon walls. So you corrected yourself and swam like a crocodile was on your tail. 

You managed to avoid being sucked into the log ride of doom by the virtue of the new muscles in your thighs (with as much...exercise as you had been getting they were kind of a given). The bank at the bottom of the canyon was gray stone, smoothed by the water. It was the same material that made up the wall of the canyon.

The walls to the canyon were sheer, too slick to climb and covered in a thick layer of green moss that, at a touch, proved to be almost slimy and more like anemones than the spongy plant you originally thought it was. Your hand started tingling as soon as you made contact with(which probably wasn’t good).

All in all, you were stuck in the bottom of a pit. 

No one came to get you. Your team didn’t appear at the ledge to look for you, the Argoro didn’t send anyone down and you had no idea what happened to Michali. 

For what you estimated to be three hours you sat at the bottom of the pit and watched the sun slip farther and farther past the lip of the canyon, plunging you into darkness with the waning light of an orange sky as the only illumination. 

You had to move.

It got cold in the night time, cold enough that it became physically painful to walk over the stones. They leached the heat out of your feet. 

It wasn’t long before you were shivering. 

Your clothing wasn’t helpful either. 

It was completely dark by the time you got to a place that you could climb out of the canyon. The four moons of the planet had risen, they were small and provided a paltry amount of light compared to even a partial moon on earth.

When was the last time you were on earth? 

Months actually, enough time that you were forgetting what it actually looked like to be outside in the night time. 

“When I get done with this-” 

You heaved yourself up the slope of the wall. It was still incredibly steep, but was now shorter and lacking the thick slime. You had clear handholds now, though it wasn’t what you would call an easy climb. 

“I am taking the team on a vacation.” You were talking to yourself, out in the middle of god-knows where. 

“We are going to earth-” You almost slipped, rolling over the canyon ledge and flopping onto the ground. This planet had grass, soft, real grass. 

“-and we are having a first steps ceremony.” You panted, groaning in pain as you rotated your shoulder and felt it pop.

“Now if only I didn’t have to fight a planet in a bathing suit.” 

You heaved yourself to your feet and started following the river back to the water flocks. 

You had a lot of time to think about your plan as you walked. From what you remembered about the Argoro you had two key things that worked to your advantage and two that worked against you. 

The good news was that the Argoro lived in densely populated areas and slept for the equivalent of an entire earthen day. That meant you would know where they were and could avoid them if you needed to by taking advantage of their species-wide slumber. 

The bad news was that the Argoro were a hive mind of super soldiers, if one of them saw you then they would all come after you and you would likely die an awful death. 

There was a slim chance that Michali was fine and everything was sorted out, but if that was the case then someone would have come after you when you plummeted into the gorge. 

So you had to assume that the entire planet was out to get you and that they had your team as leverage.

You needed to get in, recover six people, and then get everyone out without letting anyone know that you were there in the first place. 

And you had to do it before they decided to kill your team. Knowing them, that gave you approximately twelve hours. 

How straight forward! Practically childs play!

One step at a time was bullshit. To make this plan work you needed three at once, minimum.

Step one two and three were as follows: 

  1. Get to the compound.
  2. Observe for a way in
  3. Get into the building undetected



It took you a lot less time to get back to the compound you first landed in than it took to get out of the canyon. Since you didn’t have to pick your way around rocks you kept a faster pace. 

You were also pretty sure that the tingling from that weird moss you touched was getting more intense.

Luckily the planet Argoro had trees and shrubs for cover. Some of them had thorns, but you managed to maneuver yourself through the woods without much trouble. Some of the vines leaked black liquid when you touched them. 

You slipped through the area toward the place that your crew and ship were being held in. 

It was a long, low building. Far to the side was where you had landed your ship that morning. It would be completely inaccessible, there were too many guards in the landing bay. The rest of the complex, with the exception of the short hall to the conference room, was a complete mystery to you. 

There was one good thing about that conference room, it had a skylight. Not one that would open. But one that could certainly be broken. 

It would make a lot of noise and it would likely be messy, but it was a start. 

You climbed the outside of the building, it was surprisingly easy. There was plenty of light from the three moons, the different streams of light breaking the shadows into three headed creatures on the ground. 

There were actually a lot of skylights up on the roof, not just the one for the conference room. 

You walked amongst the windows, carefully peaking into each. The glass itself looked strange, a little more reflective and rainbow than what was used by humans. You wondered if whatever differences it had made it stronger than standard glass. 

If it was strong, you would like to have sex with someone on top of it, maybe with the rest of your team watching from beneath. 

Huh, maybe this wasn’t the best time to be fantasizing, but you were suddenly, starkly, and deeply horny. 

You shook your head and kept looking into windows, there was one that opened into an empty room full of blinking computers, maybe you could get some information out of that room? 

You punched the window and it exploded inward in a shower of glass. It was surprisingly easy even though the glass must have been at least an inch thick, maybe whatever they added to their glass made it weaker? 

Luckily the glass fractured into little cubes, it must have been tempered. You could see the fragments of it glittering on the ground below. 

You dangled yourself through the window and dropped to the ground. Landing on the scattered pebbles of glass didn’t hurt, likely because of the adrenaline. You immediately dart through the room and crouch behind one of the doors, resting your hand on a nearby manual that must have weighed twenty pounds. 

You always used to think that heavy books like those would make great weapons, and now you had a chance to figure it out! If anyone heard the noise and came looking for the source, you would clock them with knowledge! 

You wondered if that would be enough to take down the teenage mutant ninja turtles. 

You never got a chance to figure that out, no one came through the door. 

You dropped the book and walked to a computer. It was locked of course, but thanks to sending the diagnostic scans your team took earlier that morning (was it really just that morning?) you had a guest account to access their servers. The idea had been to give the medical information more security, but now it let you pull up a map of the building you were in. 

You looked for some kind of holding cell or jail, only to realize that there was nothing like that on the map. 

If they didn’t have a jail then WHERE THE HELL WAS YOUR TEAM!

Time for plan B. 

You were going for Michalis' body. 

Now that might sound like a dumb bitch move, and even in your own head you had some doubts. However, you had worked it out on the way to the complex. 

Michali was sixty, and he had taken a nasty knock to the head. It was likely that he needed to be transferred into his new body. From your understanding of ‘the process’ of transferring bodies, there was a gestation period of about ten hours once an egg was implanted into a host. 

That meant he was still in his injured body at that moment; not in the fresh, young one. 

If you could get to the body, or even close to the body, you could hold it hostage until they gave your team up and let you get off the planet alive. 

You would give it back.

Maybe. 

If they so much as touched one hair on your crews head you were putting a stake through Michalis heart, universe be damned. 

You needed something to threaten them with, something that could kill Michali. 

You were going to build a bomb. 

Isopropyl alcohol was commonly used for cleaning electronics. Being that it was alcohol, it was flammable. It burned a bright, pretty blue. 

It was also toxic, which was a plus. 

You ripped up the cushion of a chair, grabbed a bottle of alcohol, and using what you thought was a very clever application of a wire from a gutted pc and a battery you set some of the fabric on fire. Your plan was to keep the fire separate from the bottle until you were right in the room, then you would light the wick and throw it to the ground, letting the plastic melt and causing an explosion. 

Oh but you would only just be getting started!

Since isopropyl alcohol was toxic, mixing it with the fluid that preserved Michalis' body would kill him. In the confusion and fire, you would yank the intake tube out of the wall and hold the bottle neck into the tube valve. 

If too much time passed then the lack of fluid flow would kill Michali, if you tilted the bottle it would kill Michali, theoretically you could just open the door and kill Michali. 

Cruel? Not from where you were standing. 

You needed your crew back.

You needed them back so badly it was physically painful. 

So you took a deep breath and kicked the door to the hallway with all your strength.

According to the map you had seen Michalis room would be in two left turns and then one right from your position. It was the third door on the right after that. 

You fucking booked it, you doubted you had ever run faster in your whole entire life. In fact, you were so fast you could change your name to Sonic and people would ask HIM how it felt to be in YOUR shadow. 

You ran so fast that you didn’t have time to be concerned with stealth. You rocketed past two Argoro, one of them shouted something at you. 

You were not listening.

You wrenched the door to Michalis' room open, running face first into the carapace of a very familiar figure. 

It was Sato, looking down at you with confusion. He grabbed onto your arm.

You, in retaliation, sprayed some of the isopropyl alcohol into his face and lit it on fire with your bit of flaming chair fabric. 

He screamed and reeled back from you, leaving only one other creature and empty space between you and your target. 

Felix was the second Argoro in the room, he was hovering over Michalis old body where it was laying in a cot. 

You lit the wick to your Molotov cocktail and dashed it to the ground. 

Blue flames exploded across the floor and walls in a sheet of glowing plasma. 

Fire was so pretty to look at, it didn’t even bite you as you jumped through it and slammed into Felix. He stumbled back, trying to catch his balance, and swiped at you with a clawed hand. 

He must have missed, because you felt no pain as you disengaged from him and yanked the intake tube out of the wall. 

Everything froze as soon as you were in position, the only sound being the slight whoosh of the burning flame, the beeping of Michalis monitors, and a steady dripping from the liquid onto the floor. 

“Yeah that’s right, freeze mother fuckers.” You felt something that could have been a smile spread over your face. “Now where the fuck is my team?” 


	18. There's this casual thing called drugs and you are on them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am so stupid, I FORGOT AN ENTIRE PART OF THE LAST CHAPTER, IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE WITHOUT THIS BIT!

The entire team was down in the dumps, half heartedly picking at the food provided to them. 

Everything had happened so fast, one moment everyone was happy and everything was going well, the next there was blood in the air and Red was just...gone. 

They had worked out what had happened eventually; when Michali hit his head, Red had gone after him like a stupid, self-sacrificing hero.

Yoshi had seen Michali covered in blood and (much like the Captain had) he acted without thinking. 

It had only been a few seconds. But by the time those few moments elapsed Red had fallen a hundred feet through the gorge on the other side of the safety netting.

The Argoro had acted as a single unit immediately after Yoshi landed the first blow. They treated all of the Crew as hostile and rounded them up without remorse, shoving them into a storage room where they were held for hours. 

It was only once Michali woke up (briefly, before he was put under again for the transfer procedure) and chewed out his husbands in three different languages that anything changed. 

A pair of Argoro came to get the crew from storage, they kept their heads bowed and refused to look at the group of humans.

Yellow was the first to speak, his voice shaking in anger. 

“Where’s our Captain!”

The Argoro did not look up from the ground. 

“Your captain…” the Argoro that spoke barely raised his voice above a whisper. “...your captain went over the ledge of the canyon, we did not find a body at the base of the waterflocks.” 

Orange sighed, rapping her arm around Yellow's shoulders.

“That's good though isn’t it?” She eyed the creature beside her warily, nudging Yellow stealthily toward the center of the pack. “If you didn’t find a body then the Captain is probably still alive, right?” 

The Argoro did not respond.

“Right?”

A sound rose through the air, a purring churr that sounded sad and heavy. 

“Unfortunately there is a very strong current at the base of the water flocks. The water is funneled into a series of very tight underground caverns, it is more likely that your captain's body was sucked into the funnel.” 

Orange fell to her knees; beside her, someone wailed. 

“Are we going to get Reds body back?” Blue hadn’t eaten anything, they hadn’t touched their macaroni and cheese. 

It had probably been given to them as a sort of comfort, but there was nothing comforting about a dish that the Captain made whenever things were looking down. 

It wasn’t the same. 

Purple leaned against Blue, wrapping her arms around their broad chest.

“Yeah.” Orange croaked, her eyes focused on the opposite wall. She couldn’t look at the others. 

The table went silent, the only sound was the patter of liquid against the floor as Black knocked a cup over and failed to realize that he had done it. It leaked cranberry juice over the floor. Red like the Captains color. 

The Argoro had agreed to leave the crew time to grieve alone, so it was a surprise when the door to the cafeteria flew open. 

Yoshi, or at least someone identical to Yoshi, swept into the room. 

Before that moment, the Argoro had been careful to only contact the crew with individuals that didn’t look like the one that killed their captain. 

It had been a good decision, proven when Orange stood so violently her chair skidded across the floor and rushed Yoshi. 

“You son of a bitch!” Her punch took the Argoro off his feet, sending him sprawling at her feet. “You think you can come in front of this fucking crew after what you did? You absolute piece of shit!” she stomped on his head, forcing him to catch her foot as it descended. 

“Wait!”

“Absolutely not you mother-fucker! I’ll gut you!” 

“Red is alive!” 

Orange stepped back, the scraping of chairs behind her indicating that the rest of the team had stood. Someone laughed.

Orange offered her hand to the Argoro on the ground. 

“You should have led with that.” 

The Captain may be alive, but they were not okay. 

“I was under the impression that humans were not fireproof.” Yoshi was fidgeting nervously outside of a flaming room, Sato standing beside him and clutching the rapidly healing patch of burned skin on his face.

“We aren’t.” Black was staring into the room in abject horror, watching as some of the last of the flames spattered out. Red was standing in the corner of the room, facing off against Felix and Michalis' old body. 

There was clearly something wrong. 

Red hadn’t even noticed them in the doorway, so out of it that nothing was relevant anymore. The Captain had burns on both legs, thin cuts all over every inch of exposed skin, and there were bloody footprints trailing across the room through where the fire had been burning. 

Black stepped forward, both hands extended to show he was unarmed. 

“Captain?” 

Red didn’t even respond, staring unblinkingly at Felix. 

“Cap? Red? Can you hear me?” 

It wasn’t until Black stepped in the Captain's line of sight that anything changed. 

The bottle Red was holding exploded on the ground, the tube that had been ripped out of the wall following suit. 

Felix immediately rushed to re-connect the tube to the wall, checking over Michalis body. 

Black took the Captain by the shoulders and brought their faces close together. 

“Holy shit.” 

Purple stepped into the room without concern for the remnants of flame.

“What? What’s the matter.” 

The rest of the Crew rushed forward with her. There was a mad smile on Reds face as they all came into view. 

“Dilated pupils, no sense of pain, irrationality, single-minded focus; Guys, the captain is on cocaine.” 

It was worse than cocaine, so much worse than cocaine. Whatever Red had come into contact was like flakka, cocaine, and who knows what else bundled together. 

“What the fuck, what the actual FUCK.” Black stared at the x-rays in disbelief, Red had to be sedated to get the images, and thank god the sedatives even still worked. 

The x-ray on the right hand revealed a shattered hand, not just broken, completely shattered. The knuckles were obliterated. 

The bloody footprints in Michalis room were because there had been GLASS in both feet, and the hundreds of slices and cuts? Who knew where they came from but the captain didn’t even feel them. 

“Cap, what the fuck happened to you?” 


	19. The Wrongness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I have been gone for a while. I had finals. Expect posting to recover once this ordeal is over later this week.

Seven pills, one per plate. 

You counted them ten times, rolling them into your palm, watching their smooth, red bodies tumble along the crevices of your palm.

You needed to know. 

It wasn’t enough to kill a human, it wasn’t even enough to hurt a human; they wouldn't even know it was there. You wouldn’t even know it was there

“I’m starving! What’s for dinner?” Blue leaned over the counter. You jolted, how long had they been there? 

“It’s shrimp scampi, and I made a salad for it.”

“Oooh, does that have spinach in it?” you relaxed and clenched your hand around the pills, they must not have noticed anything. 

“Yeah, and a lemon vinaigrette.” 

“Fancy.” they gave you a giddy smile and hovered around the counter until you sighed, wiped your hands on your apron, and walked over to give them a sweet, lingering kiss. They wasted no time in sucking your tongue into their mouth and bracketing your waist with their huge, warm hands. They held you tightly, with a touch too much of their lunatic strength. 

It was a suspicious strength.

“Mmmhm.” They pulled away and swept their tongue over their teeth. They had prominent lower canines. 

“You’ve been drinking tea at night time again haven't you?” their rough fingertips brushed your cheek. 

You leaned into the supple, warm skin of their palm. 

“Yeah.” 

“Decaf I hope?” 

You sighed. 

“Unfortunately not, I’ve been really tired recently.” You had needed the caffeine just to stay functional, just to pull you through the few hours before you were meant to sleep. 

“Hmmm.” they peered into your face, stroking shapes with their thumb along the ridge of your brow bone. “Get Black to give your something before bed.” 

“I’ll be fine.” you raise your hand to bat theirs away, only to have them snatch it out of the air. 

“Get Black to give you something before bed.” their hooded, vibrant blue eyes were dark, intense. 

You found yourself nodding. 

“Yeah, yeah okay.” 

They grinned, the aura they had before evaporating. They leaned forward and pecked your nose. 

“Good! I’ll round up the others for dinner!” 

They were gone before you could react to the switch in personalities. 

It started with Yellow, his eyes drooped as he was talking, in the middle of explaining the story of the Jersey Devil to Green, his head slowly fell to the side, and soon his whole body was limp in his chair. 

You shot out of your spot, rushing to stop him from falling face first into his pasta. You waited for Blacks steady hands to take him from you, for Green to lay him down and Purple to help get him into a recovery position, but no one moved.

From the corner of your eye, you saw Green tilt sideways in his chair and hit the ground, from behind you, you heard another thump, and the telltale clatter of a plate falling to the ground. 

You slowly turned around, fearing the worst. 

Everyone was unconscious. 

You slowly walked back to your empty seat and sat. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen, the medicine you used would only give a human a stomach ache. You were supposed to make up some excuse about bad shrimp and pretend that you hadn’t put anything in the food. It was supposed to-it was supposed to just be one or two of them that were imposters, not all of them. 

You dropped your head and screamed as you realized your hands were dissolving into shapeless flesh.

  
  


You woke up with a groan, your head hurt. 

Not just ‘bad hangover’ hurt either. You had a full on sledge-hammer pounding behind your eyes.

“Oh look, you’re up.” You managed to turn your head to the side. 

Michali was sitting by your bed, reading a book. 

He looked a lot younger than the last time you saw him.

“Michali?” 

“The one and only.” He grinned and you squinted closer in confusion. 

“Did you have those teeth before?” His mouth was lined with razor sharp, pointed teeth. You were almost certain that he did not have those before the mysterious gap in your memory. 

“No, but I do like to switch it up sometimes. You know, keeping it interesting for the hubby.” He bared his new teeth at you. “What do you think? They look pretty good don’t they?” 

They certainly looked...exiting. You blinked around the room, you were in a cot, surrounded by medical equipment. It wasn’t the med-bay on your own ship. 

“Where am I?” 

Michali put down his book. 

“My personal medical facility.” You frowned. 

“Why am I here? What happened?” 

“You don’t remember?” 

Trying to understand what had happened was like trying to read a page covered in ink. 

It was impossible. 

“I remember losing the diving competition.”

“And after that?” 

There was nothing, it was just a black hole. 

“I don’t remember.” 

Michali let out an understanding hum. 

“That’s to be expected. You fell into the canyon yesterday and came into contact with a fungus species known by my husbands as...it doesn’t quite translate actually, the closest I can get in this language is ‘Fatal Rage’. Apparently it is less deadly when used on humans, though the rage part is still accurate.”

You look over to where three bags of fluids were draining into your arm. There were cuts all over your exposed skin. You flexed your toes and flinched. Your legs felt like they had been flayed open. 

“What did I do?” 

Michali leaned back in his chair. 

“Let’s see. You saved my life, took a full body blow from Yoshi, fell a hundred feet into a canyon, touched moss that was supposed to kill you but didn’t, got ragingly high, somehow got out of the canyon, walked through a thicket of brambles, punched in a skylight, made an incendiary deceive out of cleaning supplies, lit Sato and my medical bay on fire, proceeded to jump through said fire to body slam Felix, got clawed and lost a pint of blood but didn’t even notice, and then almost killed me.” He counted the events out on his fingers. “Yes I think that about covers it, your team showed up right after that and you were docile as a rabbit with them around.” he smirked “as horny as one too.” 

You went pale. 

“I almost killed you?” 

“Mmm-hmmm.” he nodded. “Out of all the assassination attempts I’ve been through over the years, yours was by far the most entertaining, you came the closest too.” 

You could only sit there, stunned and clenching the bedsheets in your fists. 

He waved a hand in front of your face, making you jolt. 

“Now don’t start any of that shit with me, I get enough misunderstandings from my husbands, I don’t need one from you too.” 

“Misunderstandings?” 

“Yes. if you think about it, Yoshi attacked you because he thought you had hurt me.”

“He attacked me?” 

“Oh yes, he knocked you right into a diving platform and through the safety net.” Michali smirked at you. “That was after you saved my life of course.” 

“I saved your life?”

“Yup, I took a knock to the head and you snatched me right out of the air, like a superhero.” 

You shook your head.

“That’s just what anyone would do.” 

Michali reached over and flicked you in the forehead. 

“Ouch! what was that for?!” 

“For self degradation. Captain Red you can not tell me you are an ordinary person when everything you have done on this planet so far has been so far beyond that.” He fixed you with a hard stare. 

His eyes were deeper than any humans should be. There was something disturbing (or maybe even frightening) about the endlessness that you saw in this gaze. 

Sitting at your bedside was a man that had lived only a sparse few of the lives he would have, looking at him was seeing infinity and having it speak to you.

He relaxed, seemingly he had gleaned something from the look he gave you. 

“Why are you guilty?” 

“Because I almost killed you!”

“Yoshi almost killed you, and yet you have already forgiven him.”

“That's different, he didn’t know what had happened to you when he attacked me.” 

A look that you could only describe as ‘gotcha’ spread across his face. 

“Isn’t that exactly what you did when you held me hostage? An attack for the sake of the team you thought had been harmed?” 

“Well I-”

“And you were high off your ass yet managed to maintain enough control that you only held me hostage instead of actually pulling the metaphorical trigger.” 

“I lit Sato on fire!” 

“He healed.” 

You sighed, trying to move your arm and completely failing. 

You had a cast on, why did you have a cast on? 

Michali noticed your confusion and had the audacity to laugh at you. 

“The only one you really hurt in your black out was yourself. That Doctor of yours had to use every trick in the book to save your hand.” Michali smiled fondly. “Poor guy is passed out.” 

He pointed to the other side of your bed, there was another cot there. Black was sprawled across it, out cold. 

You smiled fondly and reached out with your good hand, brushing some of his hair out of his face. His skin was overwarm to the touch. 

“He's quite impressive, if you’ll let me borrow him for a bit, my husbands and I would appreciate the generosity.” 

You bristled, something white-hot and dangerously possessive pooling in your stomach. 

“Absolutely not!” 

Michali quirked an eyebrow. In your head you cursed, you just gave him exactly what he wanted.

“Just kidding.” 

Well fuck, he wasn’t going to report you for an undisclosed relationship to SKELD was he? You hadn’t gotten around to filing the paperwork yet. 

“You’re dating aren’t you? Not just him, but the whole lot of them?” 

Now that you thought about it, you never did define what you had between you. 

You were surprised to realize that you didn’t really care. 

“I love them.” that was all that really mattered wasn’t it? “I love them more than anything.” 

Michali sighed and stood from his chair. 

“I’d normally say you were stating the obvious, but…” he looked toward the door, a softness in his eyes that they normally lacked. “I know what you mean.” 

He clearly loved his husbands just as much as they loved him. 

“Now I got to go tell Felix that I was joking about that whole ‘borrowing’ thing before he gets upset.” 

“Wait!” He turned back toward you. “The rest of my Crew, where are they? Are they safe?” 

“They’re on your ship, Black threatened them to get them to rest, something about choosing ‘Mondongo’ as his meal?” 

Oh, that would get them moving for sure, Mondongo wasn’t bad, it was just what some would call ‘an acquired taste’. Like oysters, or liver. 

You actually kind of liked Mondongo. And Oysters. And Liver. Look you were a retail worker you ate whatever people gave you and if that happed to be venison liver from a hunter friend or oysters from the fisherman who frequented the shop you used to wait tables in then you would find a way to make them palatable. 

You felt a smile spread across your face, unbidden. 

“Yeah, that certainly sounds like something he would do.” Michali left you alone with him. 

You sighed and put your bare feet on the floor, using your only good hand to sort out the mess of tubes that ran to your I.V. 

There was only a few feet between your cot and the one Black was sleeping on, but crossing that distance may as well have been crossing a thousand miles. 

Your feet HURT, especially when you put pressure on them. Your legs were trussed up to your knees in bandages. 

You scoot the IV stand over the gap so that the tubes wouldn’t tug at it when you crossed over to his bed, sitting on the edge of the bed and mentally preparing yourself to stand. 

It wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be. It only took two steps to reach your goal and the painkillers you were on did their job well enough that the fiery agony was eased to something manageable. 

You lay beside him carefully, detangling your wires and tubing as you did. 

You pulled him into your hold with care. He was so exhausted that he didn’t wake; Instead he let out a long sigh, nuzzling into your chest and adjusting himself so that he was pressed even closer to you. You slipped a leg between his, caressing his hair. 

It was greasy and unwashed, he smelled like disinfectant and sweat. He had spent so much energy taking care of you that he had none left to take care of himself. 

You pressed kisses to his head. 

“You saved me love.” you whispered into his hair. “You did it, it’s alright now, we’re together again.” 

He seemed to relax at your words. You hoped his dreams were sweet.


	20. Force Viewing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy holiday my lovely Crewmates. I am back from finals so I am writing again. Enjoy this chapter of fluff and smut as the captain returns to the ship and settled back in with their injuries. The porn is toward the end of the chapter and features Blue and Green and can be left out without disturbing the rest of the story.  
> WARNINGS: forced voyeurism, blood, biting, violent roleplay, and this could potentially be seen as consent play. This is the sexy demon scene that was requested.

You didn’t remember falling asleep, but when you next woke Black was stirring awake. 

“Cap’em.” He was barely intelligible, groaning as his eyes cracked open, liquid black. You shifted slightly and realized that he had his ear pressed to your chest, he must have woken sometime in the time you were asleep and tugged your hospital robe open so that he could lay his head against your bare skin.

“Go back to sleep, love.” You stroked his hair. 

“M’kay.” he was out again, breathing deeply into the skin of your chest. 

You look around the room, jolting when you realize that you aren’t alone with your medic anymore. Sometime during your rest, the rest of your crew had joined you in the room, and were now draped over the cots and chairs. 

“You’re up.” you glance toward the whisper and jolt when you realize Yellow is sitting in a chair, watching you with an expression of pure relief. For once he didn’t try to mask it with anything else. 

“Yeah.” your voice croaked out. “I’m up.” Yellow was cradling Oranges head on his shoulder, gently rubbing a pattern along her shoulder. 

You followed the curve of her arm with your gaze, noting the bulky wraps around her hand. 

“What happened to her hand?” 

He rubbed his free hand over his face in exasperation. 

“What happened-what happened to HER hand? Captain, what happened to YOUR hand?”

You flex your fingers in their cast. 

“I was told I punched a window.” 

“A skylight. A three inch pane skylight. And you fucking shattered it.”

You winced.

“In my defense, I was high on space drugs.” 

He scoffed at you, a reluctant smile touching his expression. 

“I’m letting you off the hook strictly because you came back to us in one piece.” You reached your hand out to him and he took it desperately, a tiny shiver running through his body when you pulled his hand to your mouth and pressed a kiss to his palm. 

He let out a long sigh. 

“Orange punched Yoshi, back when we thought he had killed you. That’s how her hand got messed up.” 

You let out a startled laugh. 

“You know I should have guessed that.” 

“Yeah, she dropped him harder than I dropped out of school.” 

“You dropped out of school?” 

“College.” 

“Not like you need it here anyway.” it must have really sucked for him if he dropped out. Yellow wasn’t the type of person to give up when things got tough, he wasn’t even the type of person that gave up when they SHOULD. He was dangerously stubborn.

A lot like you were. 

“Listen-” He cut himself off, suddenly choked up. He dragged his hand across his face and you jolted when you realized he was crying. 

“Hey, are you-” 

“Shut up.” 

You fell quiet as he sniffled and pulled himself together. 

“You are never going to do that again.” he gripped your fingers tighter. “Never again.” 

“I can safely say that I will not get high on space drugs again.” You cracked a smile, but it faded when you realized he wasn’t returning it. He looked devastated. 

“You can’t leave again.” He stared you dead in the eyes and you felt like you were staring at a hawk. Something about the light turned his eyes amber. 

You dropped your head back to the bed. 

“You didn’t see them Captain, you don’t know how close we were to just...shattering.” 

Your heart sunk, you felt a guilt so heavy it may as well have been a lead elephant tap dancing on your ribs. 

“We would have survived, but can you imagine Orange trying to keep us together? Can you fathom that Purple was staring at your crew photo for hours when we thought you were gone? Black had to prepare to do your autopsy!”

He was the only one that was willing to make you understand the full scope of your actions. The others would be all comfort, they would see your injuries and have nothing but sweet words for you. 

Yellow was different, he had seen how ruthless you could be, how careful and calculating you had been. He was there for the first, quick actions you took to save Orange from her injury, it had been him you went to when you needed the cameras wiped, and he was the only one that didn’t give a fuck about your injuries. He knew that you were always responsible for your actions, regardless of the substances in your system. 

You had fucked up, and he was going to make sure you understood exactly how much you fucked up. 

“I was afraid Green would…” he trailed off. “...do something bad. And blue had a panic attack so badly that they passed out in a supply room without any proper medical equipment!” 

He was right to be so angry. 

“I’m sorry, I never meant-” 

“How fucking dare you! We both know you would do it again!” 

Your chest burned. 

“What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just-” 

“You see, this is the part that you’re missing. You’re supposed to protect this crew, and you’re a fucking member of it.” 

He jabbed you in your un-injured arm.

“You’re supposed to keep yourself in one piece! For all of us! And if that means that you have to let the world burn down around you then that is what you will do.” 

You struggled with that; you struggled with the importance of your team and the ethics that had been drilled into your head since you were young. You had always believed that others came before yourself. 

Things were a little different now, your team needed you. They needed you so that they could be happy and safe.

You would kill a galaxy for any one of them, you would wipe it off the face of existence without blinking.

But could you sacrifice someone's life to save your own? 

You didn’t think Yellow would like the answer to that. 

“Welcome home Captain!” Blue welcomed you back home, pushing the wheelchair you had been confined to through the ramp doors. Purple was perched on your lap, lounging across your thighs with her arms around your neck. 

They had gotten mighty clingy since you showed up alive.

“Thanks Blue, it’s good to be back.” 

You relaxed into your chair and took a deep breath of the ship's smell. Linen, steel, the stale smell of recycled air, with just a hint of something clean and sharp. Home sweet home. 

You were exhausted, and your hand was itchy in it’s cast. All you wanted to do was rest. 

Unfortunately you had a schedule to keep, and you needed to get off-planet. 

“Blue, could you pass me off to Orange?” 

They pouted, in the time they had been on Argoro they had started growing a glittering beard of reddish stubble. It looked really good on them. 

“But I want to stay with you.” 

You rolled your eyes. 

“I’ll cuddle with you later, but right now I really need you to close up the ship and get the tethers released. Pretty please?”

“With sugar on top?”

“With sugar on top.” 

They seemed sated and let Orange take the handles from them, letting her wheel you toward the cockpit. 

You dropped Purple off on the way, then let Orange lift you out of the wheel chair and strap you into your pilot's seat. 

“Let me know if you need anything.” 

“I need a large cup of coffee.” 

“Anything but that, no caffeine on your meds, doctors orders.” 

“I was hoping you’d forget about that.” 

Green interjected from his seat beside you, already engrossed in pre-launch data. 

He didn’t even glance up at you. 

“She never forgets, like an elephant.”

She huffed and gave him a fond smile. 

“If I didn’t remember then no-one would, now I have to get myself strapped in, let me know if you need to move back to the wheelchair.”

“Don’t worry, Green can help me if I need to transfer.” 

“Alright then, but if it’s an emergency-”

“I’ll contact you.” 

“Thank you.” she pressed a brief kiss to your mouth and darted out of the door. 

Almost immediately, you were turning toward Green, a frown in place. 

“What’s eating you?” 

He glanced up at you. 

“Hmm? Nothings eating me, just checking the calculations.” 

You raised an eyebrow. 

“Your screen is open to an empty spreadsheet.”

He buried his face in his hands, you sighed. 

“Green.” 

He looked up at you through his fingers. You spread your arms out as far as they could go with the cast on.

“Come here.” 

He practically crawled into your seat, grabbing a fist of your uniform and shoving your face into his chest. 

You stroked his back with your only good hand and let him crush you closer to himself. Green had never been one to express his emotions verbally like Purple, and you couldn’t remember seeing him cry, his way of dealing with negative emotions strayed a little too close to ‘ignore them’ for your comfort. 

If he needed to hold you then you would let him, even if he squeezed the life out of you. 

“You’re okay baby, I’m back with you again.” 

You mumbled words of affirmation into his chest, ignoring the pain of his weight against your wounds. 

“I know that, I know. So why do I still feel so out of control?” 

He may have known that you were okay, but he had been through too much to dismiss the feelings of dread entirely. It had been an emotional rollercoaster of horror and relief for him. 

You weren’t sure how to make it better.

“Green, I want to help you but I’m not sure how to make you feel better, any idea how I can do that?” 

Green wasn’t as easily readable as some of the others were. You knew when he was lying, the problem was that sometimes he didn’t talk at all. 

You rested your hand on his waist and pulled away from him just enough to see his face, he shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

You sighed and wrapped your good arm all the way around him. 

“Think about it for me, okay baby?” 

You felt him nod. 

“Good boy, now let’s get this bird off the ground.” 

One of the things that sucked about being in a wheelchair, a cast, and enough bandages to make a mummy, was that showering became a group activity. 

Black unwrapped all of your bandages first, checking your wounds and slipping your cast into a plastic bag. He was pragmatic about it, and completely refused to let you distract him with offers of sucking his dick from the bench he sat you on. 

To your horror he made it clear that you weren’t going to be having ANY sex while you were healing. You had tried to protest, it just wasn’t fair that he was right in front of you, drenched in hot water and glittering under the ship lights and telling you that no matter how hard he got you were not allowed to touch him. 

He hadn’t caved. 

You moped even after the shower was done, freshly dressed and returned to the chair. Black stood behind you, drying your hair. 

“You’re due for a haircut, you got pretty singed in that fire.” 

You sighed, still mourning that you would have to be horny for a few weeks. 

“I guess that’s what I get for lighting a fire indoors.” 

“And jumping through it.” 

You looked up at him in shock. 

“Oh yeah, I guess Michali did say I did that.” 

His fingers tightened in your hair and he wrenched your head back, forcing you to stare up at him.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish.” You warned. “You’re the one that said no sex.” 

“I never said I was going to make it easy for you.” He kissed you, fist tight in your hair. 

“Then what’s this for?” 

He licked his lips, he had changed out the stud in his mouth for a solid gold one in the shape of a star, you swallowed heavily, eyes tracking the flashing piece of metal as it vanished into his mouth again. 

“That’s because you’re a crazy bastard, but also one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen.” 

“I mean, did you see Orange in that bathing suit?” 

You grinned at him as his eyes darkened. 

“Don’t remind me of that right now. I said no sex.”

You slung his words back in his face. 

“I didn’t say I would make it easy for you.” 

He groaned and leaned in, licking a hot stripe up your neck before focusing his lips on a spot under your ear. You sighed as the tell-tale sting of a hickey rose from the spot. 

You tried to raise your hand to cup the back of his neck, only for it to stop a few inches above the arm of your chair with a hard clink. 

You stared down at your arm in disbelief, sometime during the kiss Black had handcuffed you to the chair with one of the thick, steel bands that were normally kept in the weapons bay. They were supposed to be emergency restraints for rogue crew members.

“What?” A bolt of panic shot through your chest. For a moment you genuinely struggled at the cuff. 

Your fear was only assuaged when you saw the heated way Black was watching you. His eyes were lidded and heavy. 

You tugged at the restraint with far less genuine force, glaring up at him. He was looking at you like he just won something. You had a really bad feeling about this. 

“You’re still not going to let me fuck you, are you?”

His smirk spoke volumes. 

“Absolutely not, tonight all you’re getting is a show.” 

Your breath got stuck somewhere between your mouth and lungs. 

You heard the click of the wheelchair breaks releasing.

_(The porn starts here, please skip if the warnings in the chapter summary are not your cup of tea.)_

He pushed you into the storage room and left you there. It was so dark you couldn’t see anything. Not even your own hand where it was gripping tight to the arm of your chair. 

The room was eerily silent, your breath bouncing off the walls was all you could hear. 

You fidgeted with the chain on your wrist, wondering if you would unscrew the arm of the chair and free yourself. 

At the clanking of the links a heavy hand gripped you around the neck, forcing your head back.

A choked gasp escaped you before your air supply was cut off entirely. 

“Not thinking of getting out of those chains are you?” the voice in your ear was deep and purring, you registered faintly that it was Blue.

You tried to respond and were cut off by a tightening of the hand around your neck. 

“None of that now, I would hate to have to kill the captain of this craft.” 

There was a flicker of light out of the corner of your eye as candles suddenly began to light the dark space, you couldn’t see who was lighting them, too consumed with suddenly being able to see a face looming out of the darkness. 

It was Blue, but it wasn’t Blue. There was something different about them. 

You realized with a jolt that it was their eyes, Blue didn’t have red eyes like that. 

The creature in front of you had crimson eyes, so bright that you could clearly see their color in the candlelight. Their body looked like Blues did, but it swirled with tattoos that licked over the panes of muscle in their neck, chest, and arms. Disappearing into a pair of blue boxers that strained over their thighs. A pair of horns like rams curled over their ears, dangerously sharp and close enough to be a threat to your eyes should the thing choose to move closer. 

They did just that, the sharp point of a horn piercing the tender skin of your cheek as they leaned forward and licked a possessive stripe from your jaw up to your hairline. 

“Are you curious about something captain?” their tongue swept over teeth that were sharp and pointed, you gulped against the pressure of their hand as your eyes watered, your head going dizzy from lack of oxygen. 

Their hand clenched tighter and they yanked you forward, dragging the wheelchair a few inches across the ground even though the brake was locked into place. 

Their breath fanned across your face, it smelled like ash and campfire. 

The smile that spread across their features was mirthless and cold. 

“Well are you?” 

The pressure around your neck lessened just enough for you to force a response out. 

“Yes.” you wheezed, the hand immediately tightening again as the creature's face contorted into a snarl. 

You bucked desperately against your restraints as they got closer, trying to yank your head out of their grip, they resisted your attempts effortlessly and leaned in toward your ear.

Every fiber of your body screamed that this thing in front of you was dangerous, your eyes flared as you instinctively tried to keep them in view. 

As soon as their broad figure moved aside you had something else to focus on. The thing had gotten to Green first. 

Green was sitting on the cold floor, behind the creature, cast in the soft candlelight and struggling against bonds that wrapped around his body in an elaborate pattern. The ropes held his hands to his chest, and kept his legs open with a spreader bar attached at his knees. As he writhed against his binds you saw that he had been gagged, a leather strap wrapped around his head and held a copper bulb that matched the spreader bar in his mouth. 

The creature tsked in your ear. 

“Captain, oh Captain.” it sing-songed, voice too light in contrast to the look of desperation that Green's eyes contained as they burned into you. “It seems I have your attention now.” 

Their jaws snapped down, one of the pointed teeth pierced your ear, a trickle of warm blood running down the column of your throat. You didn’t dare react, the only indication anything had happened was a faint, involuntary shiver that ran up your spine. 

The creature pulled away with a trickle of your blood painting their lips red. They smiled at you, their teeth stained from the injury they had just inflicted. 

“Open wide.” 

Their eyes narrowed as they pressed something cold and smooth against your lips. You glanced at them, then at where Green was restrained on the floor. 

“Unless you want this pretty thing to suffer for it, open your damn mouth!” they shoved a finger in between your teeth and pried your mouth open, slipping a round object into it and clamping your jaw shut around it. 

They grabbed your head between both of their large palms and shook your head. 

The thing in your mouth jangled. 

It was a bell. 

The creature had placed a bell in your mouth. 

“Don’t let that make a sound now, and don’t you dare drop it.” They patted your jaw, jostling you enough to make the bell sound a few more times against your tongue. 

The creature turned away from you, walking toward where Green was panting on the ground, struggling in the light of the flickering candle flames.

You wanted so badly to move, to do anything at all. You held yourself motionless with nothing but pure will, forcing the bell to stay silent in between your teeth. 

The creature knelt between Green’s legs, wrapping a massive hand around one of his thighs and dragging him across the smooth floor until they were between his spread legs.

Green was fully clothed under the ropes crisscrossing his body, but the creature wriggled a hand under the cloth of his shirt and tore through it like it was wet paper, the sharp sound of ripping cloth echoing on packages that were so familiar when under the artificial sunlight that normally lit the room. 

His pants followed, torn to ribbons and hanging in the knots of the rope. 

The creature pressed their palm to Green's dick, already shamefully hard against a knot of rope above it. 

Green arched in the creature's grasp, his skin rosy where the ropes rubbed at it and his face flushed from the exertion of trying to escape the tight hold. 

The creature grasped his head in one of it’s massive hands, pressing it roughly into the ground, bearing down on it and prying at Greens eyelids until he got the message and opened them, helplessly staring at you from beneath the creature above him. 

“Keep still for me now you pretty little thing.” the creature ran a hand down to the spreader bar and gripped it tightly, hauling it upwards and over their head. It forced Green's hips to rest on their knees, propping him up and exposing him. “I’d hate to hurt you any more than necessary.” 

A glass plug winked at you from between his long, lithe legs. 

“A slutty pretty thing apparently.” a harsh slap of skin on skin echoed through the room as the creature took its free hand and struck Green across one of his ass cheeks. 

Green writhed, and even through his gag a series of whimpers escaped him. The creature above him flexed the hand that was pinning his head. 

Your eyes followed the motion of the veins and ligaments under their skin, inexplicably drawn to the strength rippling through both of the bodies on the floor. 

The creature ran their nose along Greens torso, inhaling deeply and nestling into the soft skin. A long tongue snaked out of their mouth, tracing a path around one of Greens nipples. 

He moaned through the gag, falling silent immediately after a if embarrassed. 

“Enjoying yourself?” The creature pulled the nipple into their mouth and released it with a wet pop, resulting in a slight tremble to Green's legs. 

“I thought so.” 

The creature made eye contact with you and traced a finger teasing around the rim of the plug. 

“What do you think captain, should I give this beautiful boy what he wants?” 

Keeping eye contact with you the entire time, the creature slid a finger under the flared base of the plug, bit a perfect circle of puncture wounds around the nipple they had just teased, and popped the plug out. 

Green wailed into the gag, his leg shaking as the creature rapidly replaced the plug with three of its own fingers. 

“Perfect; warm and wet.” They purred and lapped at the wound they just made, moving to torture the other nipple in a similar way as they slowly slid a fourth finger in. 

“I could probably fit my entire fist in this hole, should I give it a shot Captain?” They rose to their knees and tilted their head at you, cocky. 

You glared, a flush of interest already burning in your gut. You shifted, trying to conceal your arousal from the thing playing with your boyfriend in the candlelight. You weren’t very successful.

“Oh, you’d like that wouldn’t you?” They grabbed one of Green's legs and lifted the spreader bar back over their head, disentangling them from between Green legs only to grasp his thigh and flip him face down with one swift motion. “Then let’s not disappoint our audience pretty boy.” 

They placed a surprisingly gentle kiss on the back of Green's neck as they adjusted themselves behind him, turning his head until he was once again staring at you. 

Their finger traced down his neck and onto his back, fisting at a knot in the ropes and using it as leverage to force him further into the floor, his legs straining at the spreader bar between his knees as the new position forced his legs to move as wide as they could in his restraints. 

They stuffed four of their fingers back into his hole, flexing them with a wet squelch as they massaged his walls. He let out a muffled scream as they hit something inside of him, his hips canting away from the touch as he came onto the slick floor. 

The creature let out a dark, rumbling chuckle, nudging the tip of their thumb at the rim of his ass and slowly sliding it into the first knuckle. 

Green keened, his eyes glassy as he watched you. You couldn’t help it, you yanked violently at the cuff in your arm, just once. 

The bell in your mouth rang and the creature hovering above Green froze, turning toward you with a cruel smile, their chin coated in blood. 

“Now Captain, don’t make my hand slip.” They yanked with the first that was holding the knot between Green’s shoulder blades, forcing his body back onto where their fingers were buried inside of him. 

Green screamed into his gag again, tears pooling in his eyes as his body was forced to take the second knuckle of the creature's thumb, stopping just short of the thicket part of their hand. 

“Oops.” You fell still again and watched as the creature resumed their attempts to fit the rest of their fist into his body. 

They never got their entire fist in, Green’s hips were too narrow and their hands were too big. 

They didn’t seem too put-off by it. 

“Oh well.” They shrugged and wiped their hand on the remnants of Green's shirt. He had cum again, and was trembling under the creature's grip as they hauled him up and forced him to sit in their lap, his back nestled against their chest.

Green shivered as they slipped a hand under the ropes and tugged the last scrap of his shirt out from under the knots. They positioned him on their thighs and tugged themself out of their boxers, it was good that Green had gone through all that preparation, because the cock that sprung free of the waist band was so thick that you wouldn't be able to wrap your hand around it and have your fingers touch.

“If I can’t fuck you on my fist I’ll fuck you like this instead.” Green was so loose and wet that there was no resistance when the creature lifted him up and set him on their dick. 

They let out a pleased sigh, rolling their hips into his body and jolting him with each little thrust. His hands trembled where they were held against his chest, and from his spot sitting on the creature's lap you could see that Green had already gotten hard again. He was drooling through the gag, his head lolling to the side. 

The creature wrapped both of their hands around his waist and squeezed, lifting him off of their dick before mercifully dropping them back onto it. 

Green made strangled sounds as they repeated the process, using raw strength to use him as easily as a normal person would use a toy. 

Green began moaning again, his dick twitching and indicating that he was about to come for the third time. All at once the creature stopped, releasing green entirely and allowing him to crumple on their dick. Geen let out a pathetic whimper, looking back at them with teary, desperate eyes. 

You were sure that he would have begged them to keep going if he were able.

They grinned and struck him across the thigh, their throaty whisper falling into the room in a sound of pure heat. 

“Ride me.” 

Green was weak, wrung out from the exertion of his two previous orgasms, but he tried to give the creature what it wanted. 

He couldn’t bounce with full range of motion with his restraints, but he ground against the cock inside him, his whimpers growing louder as he rocked. 

His dick twitched as he got close to his orgasm again, his motion reaching a fevered pace as he chased after it. 

You could see him reaching that peak, but just as he was about to crest it, the creature beneath him grabbed onto some of his ropes and slammed him downward, forcing him flush to their hips.

He struggled against the hold, articulating his need with whines leaking through the gags.

“Good boy.” They growled and dragged their tongue along his neck, sinking their teeth into his skin. 

He yelped, and the creature flipped him face down again, holding his head to the floor and his legs entirely off the ground as they bent him and began thrusting into him like an animal. Green went limp in the hold, his orgasm ripped out of him by the brutal pounding. 

The creature finished inside of him with a snarl, their teeth clamping onto the back of Green’s neck, holding him captive as they rode out their orgasm. 

When they finally let him go, they were panting and flushed. 

“Green?” they stroked a tender hand along his arm. “Are you with me.” They gently extracted the gag from his mouth. 

“Yeah.” Green’s voice came out rough. “Tha’s good.” 

Blue immediately removed the sharp horns and tucked themselves back into their underwear, slowly undoing each knot in the elaborate harness on Green's body and rubbing circulation back into his limbs. 

“Captain, are you doing alright?” they rushed over to you as soon as Green was free of his binds and wrapped in a soft blanket. 

You dropped the bell out of your mouth with a clang, you were panting. 

“Here, let me get that cuff free for you.” Blue produced a key from who knows where and popped your cuff off, pressing a gentle kiss to the ring of bruises. 

You immediately lowered your hand to touch yourself, only to have Blue grasp your wrist and press it firmly to the arm of your chair. 

“No touching yourself.” Their eyes glittered, part stern and part teasing. “Doctors orders.” 

You sputtered indignantly, you were so turned on it was almost painful. 

“But-then why did I get to watch.” 

Blue smirked, their contacts still giving them an evil aura. 

“Because Captain, we’re pissed at you.” 

A sense of dread pooled in your stomach.

Behind them, Green had the audacity to laugh at you. 

You weren't getting him his favorite juice boxes the next time you picked up groceries. 


	21. Deployment Victual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're back on the ship, and everything is alright now. 
> 
> But you forgot about something.

_ The creature thrashed in it’s glass prison, slamming into the walls of the gutted reactor tube that acted as it’s cell.  _

_ The glass was tempered, dual layered, and strong enough to withstand the vibrations of a close proximity engine firing with enough force to lift your ship out of a 5g gravity field. You were confident that it would hold.  _

_ After all; if it hadn't held the thing behind the glass would have killed you already. _

_ It oozed up the sides of the container, shaping itself violently into disturbing strands of fibrous gristle and bone shards. From a distance it could almost be mistaken for a viscous liquid, but up close there was something grossly organic about the interior that was revealed with each thrash. _

_ You reached over and threw the switch that controlled the engine. The vibrations that had been aimed through the tube ended, and the blob slowly settled into the horror that you remembered so distastefully.  _

_ “Hello White.” You felt your lip raise in a snarl as you took in it’s form.  _

_ It had tried to make itself look human, but clearly missed the mark. It had gotten almost everything right; its facial features, it’s bone structure, even its clothing, but it hadn’t been able to replicate human eyes.  _

_ The eyes it had chosen for itself were matte, white, and monochrome, far from the color and sheen that real eyes had. It’s hair was also wrong, it didn’t catch the light; instead it lay flat and lifeless against the imposter's head.  _

_ “Or should I call you something else.”  _

_ The creature inside the tube smiled with sharp, pointed teeth. Entirely the wrong texture to be human teeth. They more closely resembled bleached bone than enamel.  _

_ It began to shift into another form. _

_ You hit the switch to the engine as soon as you realized what it was doing, but were too late to stop it entirely. The face of Orange screamed as the vibrations rattled through the creature, forcing it to dissolve.  _

_ While it wasn’t very good at creating its own, original form, it was extremely talented at copying others. You had seen your crewmates form out of mutating flesh too many times already.  _

_ It ended up as it’s mockery of a human being on the bottom of the glass prison that you had made for it,  _

_ “You don’t like that do you?” It asked, lips still curled into an abominable smile.  _

_ No matter how many times you hurt it, no matter how many times you made screams leave it, it never got out of breath, it never panted or emoted exhaustion, you hadn’t even seen it sleep once in the three days that you had it trapped in the tube.  _

_ “When I take their faces.”  _

_ You scoffed. _

_ “Don’t flatter yourself, they’re poor mockeries.” _

_ “Look me in the eye when you say that.”  _

_ It had taken Yellow’s form in a blink. It was easier for it to replicate him for some reason, probably because Yellow had been the first it had killed, and it had the most time to master taking his form.  _

_ You flicked the switch again, leaving the vibrations on for a minute and listening to it’s helpless body thrashing against the glass before you finally stopped the engine again.  _

_ When it reformed as white it laughed at you.  _

_ “You lost control there, you know that you’re supposed to be rationing fuel Captain.”  _

_ You turned the engine on again.  _

_ When it came back together it laughed at you again, this time ever more manic.  _

_ “You aren’t rationing fuel anymore are you?” You wished you knew how to kill it. “That must mean that the pretty little thing in the med bay didn’t make it!”  _

_ You clenched your fist.  _

_ “You don’t care anymore! You’ll strand yourself out here!”  _

_ You felt empty, there was nothing left of the person that you used to be, there was nothing left at all.  _

_ “Tell me, is this what she wanted? Did the scientist beg you to save yourself? Did I leave enough of her to wake up?” it cackled. “I saved her for last you know! She just looked like she would taste so sweet!”  _

_ You hit the switch, making it explode into a mass of thrashing muscle fibers.  _

_ You took a lot of satisfaction when it was unable to stitch itself back together for a while.  _

_ You leaned back in your chair with a sigh. _

_ “Poke at me all you want.” You rolled your neck and it cracked, echoing in the room. “You’ve got two more hours to do it.”  _

_ The thing just laughed harder.  _

_ “You can’t kill me. I know that if you could have, you would have done it already!”  _

_ You shrugged. _

_ “I can’t kill you, but a star certainly can.”  _

_ The creature fell silent.  _

_ “Captain, what did you do?” You look up into the face of Purple; sweet, wonderful Purple. She had tears in her eyes, tears that (at one point) you promised you would never see again.  _

_ It was a very good impersonation, the creature managed to capture the tremble of her lip and the downward tilt of her mouth.  _

_ It might have worked if you hadn’t covered Purple's real body with a sheet in the med bay less than an hour ago.  _

_ “Please, you have to let me out of here! We have to undo what you’ve done before it’s too late!” Fat, glittering tears began to spill down her cheeks.  _

_ You just hummed. _

_ “That won’t work.”  _

_ “Like hell it won’t!”  _

_ It tried Yellow this time.  _

_ “You went fucking crazy, you’re fucking crazy!” _

_ You twisted in your swivel chair.  _

_ “Yeah probably, but whose fault is that?”  _

_ “Captain, please.” Just like that it was Black that was standing behind the glass, his voice soft and reassuring. “Captain, I know you’re pretty deep in, but you’re having another hallucination, you need to let me out so that we can fix this.”  _

_ You hummed.  _

_ “You think that I would forget how you killed him? You were so bitter he figured you out that you didn’t even have the decency to finish him quickly.”  _

_ You remembered hearing his screams to stay away, the self-sacrificing fool had locked himself in navigation with that thing. You had listened to him get torn apart for hours, pounding at the doors until there he fell agonizingly silent and you knew it was too late.  _

_ “Gazpacho.” Your head snapped up.  _

_ Green was on the floor of the tube, arms tied together from elbow to wrist and secured behind his back.  _

_ “Captain, gazpacho!”  _

_ “How do you know that?” You stood from your chair and slammed your hand against the switch.  _

_ This time, the creature tried to keep Green’s form. It dissolved slowly, roaring uselessly inside it’s prison.  _

_ “ **ANSWER ME!** ” you kept the vibration going, watchin it writhe. “Answer me or I keep this going until we burn!”  _

_ It laughed between it’s screams, and a terrible feeling rose within you.  _

_ “How the fuck do you know that safe word!”  _

_ It’s voice broke apart as it struggled to answer between the convulsions.  _

_ “How do I know your precious baby’s safe word? How do I know? I Know because I chose it!”  _

_ The engine fell silent, the ship’s power finally cutting off as you ran out of fuel, locked into your final route towards the center of a red giant.  _

_ “What?” _

_ “You-you didn’t think that Yellow was the first one that I killed? Oh no, he was so much tastier with meat on his bones, and you fed him up so well for me!” It morphed into Green’s form, exactly how you remembered him. “This one was the first I went for, he was nothing more than a starting course!”  _

_ It had to be lying.  _

_ “And he was so happy the day I killed him too! The first day the crew ever got together!”  _

_ You turned away from it, you couldn’t see Green’s face like that, it was too cruel, too unnatural of an expression for someone that had been downright gentle in life.  _

_ “That can’t be true, Green and I-we all-.” _

_ “You all had sex with me!” behind you, the thing crowed. “He used to write it down you know, he had a little journal of all the things he wanted to do with you.” you clamped your hands down on your forearms, digging your nails in. “I wanted to see what he was so exited about, I didn’t expect to get through half the list before you started having suspicions!”  _

_ You grabbed something at the table and threw it at the wall with a roar that bordered on inhuman. It was a stapler, bits of metal exploded across the room, a shard embedding itself into the meat of your shoulder. _

_ You didn’t even flinch. _

_ “And you know-you know what’s really sad?” It flopped against the sides of its cage, morphing violently until Orange was kneeling on the floor of the tube.  _

_ “I know that you’re only here right now because you want to hear their voices before you die.”  _

_ Your body wasn’t sure if it wanted to laugh or cry, so it did nothing at all.  _

_ “I’m here” despite how riled your emotions were your voice came out smooth and steady “because when I burn, I want my last sight to be your body catching alight in that tube.”  _

_ It laughed until the sound gave out to something more desperate, it wasn’t exactly crying, but a choked, awfully wet wheezing came from the form it had stolen.  _

_ You moved closer to the tube, hitting the wall beside it and sliding to the ground.  _

_ “Stop that.”  _

_ You pounded your fist against the tube until the wet sounds stopped. _

_ “Why should I?”  _

_ “Because whether you admit it or not, you don’t want to die alone...shut up and I’ll stay with you.”  _

_ It was silent for a moment, then the tell tale sound of it ripping itself apart and sewing itself together began.  _

_ “Take one of their forms and I’ll jettison myself out of the airlock so that you can die here like this.” _

_ “I didn’t.” _

_ You looked slowly toward the tube, already knowing what you would find. Sure enough, it was your own face that looked back at you from the creature's mass. It was surprisingly good at impersonating you, good enough that it had to have done it before. _

_ “I was working on this one for a while, so that it could be the last thing you saw when you died. I used to picture your face in death, your last thought being that I would use your body to kill again.” it hissed at you, it’s face contorting in the mask of your own.  _

_ You hummed, meeting it’s eyes and holding them. It flinched. If it had truly been human, its pupils would have constricted in fear.  _

_ “Well now you’ll die knowing what you look like as you burn.” _

_ The creature recoiled and you turned away, setting your head down against the wall as you waited for the heat to start seeping into your ship.  _

_ You felt it settle against the glass, as close to you as it could get through the restraint of its enclosure.  _

_ You took a sick sense of satisfaction that it was pitiful enough, scared enough in its last moments to seek some form of comfort from its executioner.  _

_ You guessed you were the same as it was in the end; you didn't want to die alone either. _

_ You were both silent, even as the room heated and your skin blistered and then began to turn to ash, neither of you made a sound. Your faces were perfect reflections of each other as you burned together. _

_ Until finally you died.  _

You were so well adjusted to waking up suddenly that you didn’t even flinch. You sighed and winced as you realized you were soaked in a cold sweat in the cage of Blue’s arms.

They had been putting on a lot of muscle lately, and that meant putting on some fat too. Their strong core was covered with the perfect layer of softness that made them all the more addictive to snuggle up with (and their performance in the gym was pretty sexy to watch). 

You had promised them that you would cuddle with them, partially because they were warm and solid, but also out of strategy.

Blue could sleep through your nightmares without any issues at all. 

Despite Black ordering you to a wheelchair, you put your feet on the ground after you wiggled out from under Blue’s arm (and leg, and other arm, and took their chin off of where it was laying directly on top of your head). 

You couldn’t take another moment of doing nothing. You would actually go crazy. 

At the very least you were going to rinse the sweat off your body, it wasn’t fair to the others to make them marinate in it. 

You limped down the hall to the bathroom, making sure to make no sound above a loud huff. 

Orange wasn’t nearly as heavy of a sleeper as the others, and she would kick your ass if she saw you awake. 

You successfully crept away and made your way to the bathroom, sighing as you shuffled to your locker and popped it open. 

You had a spare pair of pajamas. 

As you reached for the soft clothes, you realized that something was missing. 

You normally had three sets of casuals, but you only had two in their designated slots. 

So where were the others? 

You made your way to the dirty clothes bin and started rifling through it. 

They were at the bottom, left there from your disastrous excursion to the water flocks on Argoro.

Why were they so important again? You knew that there was something about them that was important but you couldn’t put your finger on it. 

Something fluttered out of the pocket of your pants. 

The paper that you had stuffed into your pocket after finding it in the spilled files. You squint at it in the low light. 

Just as you remembered your own face stared at you from the page. To your surprise, the row that said ‘name’ wasn’t blacked out. It clearly denoted ‘Red’. That must have been the name of the original inhabitant of this world, it had literally been ‘Red’.

Name: Red

Rank: Captain

Much of the other information was redacted, the only other readable thing on the page was a single line.

Deployment Victual. 

Skeld didn’t have deployments, they had delivery assignments. The only Organization you knew of that used ‘deployments’ as jargon was the military.

So why was ‘deployment’ on a paper with your name on it? 

As if possessed you walked out of the room, making a beeline for admin. 

Orange and Green had spent a long while reorganizing the files after you threw them against the wall, as you yanked the boxes out of their places you mentally apologized to them. 

The files were organized by date, and most of the information on them had been blacked out by thick marker ink. 

Your pace became more hurried as you tore through the box. 

Every single file was about you. 

Medical forms you didn’t remember filling out, uniform sizing information...past deployment reports. 

None of it aligned with what you expected to find about a Skeld employee. 

Skeld was an intergalactic post office, it wasn’t a military branch. 

All the way at the back, tucked into a protective opaque plastic sleeve, was a single file that wasn’t blacked out with ink. 

It was a congratulatory letter printed on plain paper, worn at the edges like it had been folded and unfolded hundreds of times. 

‘Cadet Red:

Congratulations on your completion of the intergalactic military academy. Due to your scores on our practical test, you have been selected for promotion to Leviathan class Pilot. Please report for rank confirmation and further training at 07:00 to room 16A at Cape Canaveral Space Force base.’

The letter proceeded to instruct you on dress code and what to bring with you when you arrived.

Was the original Red from this world an ex-military Pilot? But if that was the case, then why was the most recent file a deployment selection instead of a resignation? 

The previous Red would have definitely kept that, they had kept all the other documents of their military time (with all the classified information carefully blacked out) and if it was you (which it was in a way) you would have kept a resignation letter. 

Maybe it was in a different box? 

You pull out the second one, ignoring the hot burn on the soles of your feet as you moved. 

The other boxes were asset files. They denoted old supply runs of the ship, everything from spare parts and repairs to a rather comical report about a shipment that wasn’t paid for in Greens (probably the original one from this world) beautiful handwriting. 

None of them were a resignation. 

And even more pressing, none of them were files about the rest of your crew. 

There should have been some sort of personnel files for them, your box held your SKELD registration and training certifications, emergency identification papers, everything that you would need in case something went wrong. 

The crew didn’t have any of that. 

A tiny voice whispered something nasty in your head. Something that couldn’t possibly be true. 

It told you that they didn’t have files because they weren’t human.

You shook it off, that wasn’t true, something else was going on here. You continued flipping through the asset files. 

In the very back, pressed against the cardboard, was a single sheet of paper containing headshots of all of your crew. 

Unlike your papers, the headshots of your crew didn’t detail rank and deployment. 

They were prison headshots. 

Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Black…

And White.


	22. Orange you glad it's getting worse? (Female Version)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're trying your best to ignore it, you swear. 
> 
> TW: mentions of self harm, violence, unsafe sexual practices.

_You were numb, listless as you waited for the creature to finish chewing the last of the meat off of your left arm._

_It was taking pleasure in it, already having feasted on your other arm and your left calf. It had been ecstatic when it figured out that you could lose limbs and live, resulting in a drawn out meal to ‘keep the meat fresh’._

_“How nice of your little crew to leave you behind for me.” It practically purred at you, trying to get you to talk to it._

_The imposter was a strangely social creature, it could barely go a few hours without peeking its head through the door to the med bay and watching you._

_It still hadn’t figured out that the rest of the crew had escaped on your order._

_Well, not exactly on your order._

_You had forced them to go by holding yourself at gunpoint. As stupid and reckless as it was, you put a gun to your own head and then marched them into an escape pod. You sent them on a direct trajectory to Ir’leegghr; it was an earth-like planet with a large population of human colonists that tended to honeybee farms._

_You thought they would be happy there, if they could get Yellow over his overwhelming fear of bugs._

_“You're drifting off again Red, you didn’t bleed too much before I applied that tourniquet did you?”_

_You knew that on some level, the imposter needed you. It needed you to pilot the ship to it’s next feeding ground, which was why it was holding its hunger at bay by taking nibbles from your body instead of just feasting all at once. It was starving, you could see it in the way it looked at you._

_You didn’t respond, staring listlessly at the far wall._

_“Oh Reeeeed.”_

_You were mad at how it had rearranged Blacks filing systems. He had a spot for everything, and seeing the saline just sitting on the table instead of it’s proper storage would drive him batshit insane. He was anal about everything being in it’s correct place in his medical bay._

_“Captain?” Blacks large, supple hands landed on either side of your face, gently cupping your cheeks and lifting you head so that you were staring into his dark, deep eyes. Blue-toned black eyes. Black like the space between the stars or the darkness at the lights edge of a campfire._

_You turned your head slightly and pressed a kiss to the center of those palms, the ones that held desperately when you let him pump paralytics into your veins and have complete control for as long as they lasted, the ones that clasped tight to your thighs while your fingers were around his neck, the ones that you had woken to a dozen times, finger pads resting against your pulse point as you slept._

_You opened your mouth as wide as it would go and sunk your teeth into the skin between his thumb and pointer finger._

_The sound that left his mouth was inhuman, he tore himself away and dropped to his knees._

_You chewed the flap of flesh you had torn off, swallowing it heavily._

_“Captain?” Black looked up at you, horrified, but you only bared your teeth and ran your tongue across the stain of blood that saturated your chin._

_“Don’t bother, you don’t taste human.”_

_It snarled in the mask of Blacks face, no longer able to hold back from melting into its original form and lunging for your broken body in the chair._

_Your last sensations were the lashings of its tentacles wrapping around your body, it forced strands of itself into your nose and wrenched, tearing your head clear off your neck._

* * *

You wake up and groan softly, rubbing your hand across your face. 

You were trying to leave it alone, you really were. You had crawled back into bed the night you found out that your crew were classified as assets and curled around Purple's body, trying desperately to pretend that everything was okay. 

You rationalized it to yourself, explaining to your internal critic that there was no reason to poke around in something clearly dangerous when everything was working out fine.

Your crew was safe, you were staying on schedule, you had food in the fridge and plenty of extra money to keep up with the (frankly ridiculous) condom bill you managed to rack up every month. 

As your friend who lived out of the back of a van used to say: don’t poke the bear. 

Yeah, the bear reared its ugly head without said poke.

Even though you were getting better physically, the nightmares had gotten worse. 

They didn’t feature the White that you had seen in the mugshot. When white had been human, he was a tall man with a head full of early-graying hair and half a face full of scars. He grinned cheekily at the camera, and was admittedly handsome. The ear on his scarred side was completely gone, with the other pierced from the lobe all the way to the shell. 

Some time between when that picture was taken and you woke up on the ship, he had been replaced with the abomination that you now saw every time you closed your eyes. 

Or maybe he had always been that thing, and revealed himself to the original crew back before you woke up on the floor. 

You rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. 

* * *

  
  


_You were sitting in your wheelchair, typing away at a mission request. You detailed your timeline and your ship's large cargo capacity, stating your capability for taking two separate orders in one trip._

_Your cast was off, Black had been floored when the bones appeared to knit themselves together over the course of a month, a healing process that was supposed to take at least ten had been mysteriously reduced to a fraction._

_You contacted Argoro and asked them what they had pumped into your body to make you heal so fast, they told you that they had never seen anything like it before, and after some review told you that it was probably a reaction to the plasma transfusion they had given you, it had been specifically formulated for Michali and was seeded with stem cells, which could account for your accelerated healing._

_It was just a shame that the magic juice didn’t seem to extend to your feet._

_They still hurt like a bitch, and you had refused any painkillers stronger than Advil after your first week on morphine._

_Morphine made you sleepy, and you weren’t fond of that; you were even less fond of how incredibly horny it made you in a time when you were under a strict ‘no sex’ order._

_And- well seriously like no sex at all, they really loved to torment you for getting yourself hurt and while you agreed that you had done something incredibly stupid, hadn’t you already suffered enough?_

_You sighed, once again distracted from your work. You gave your cheeks a little slap and rested your fingers back on the keyboard. Just as you did, you felt a cold draft touch your cheek. That would normally be okay in an office building on earth, you would have rationalized it away as the AC kicking on._

_There was no AC on your ship, there wasn’t much temperature control at all, instead air was constantly and consistently vented through the ship. The current of air never turned off or on, which meant that if you felt a draft that hadn’t been there before then it meant that something had been blocking it; and that something had moved._

_You slowly turn around in your chair, staring into the vent behind you. It was dark, as it always was, and nothing moved from within it._

_You wheel yourself over and stare down at it. After a moment, you gather the courage to hook your fingers through the metal grating and tug at it._

_It pops out without any resistance._

_Before you have the opportunity to react to what you found, you’re hit behind with something that's so heavy it knocks you clean out of the chair._

_It lashes around you in a hundred tentacles, binding you from your wrists to your ankles. Some of its incredible bulk sits on the small of your back, pushing you into the ground and punching the air from you so harshly that you have no breath left to scream._

_It takes advantage of your gasp and lashes a tendril around your head, anchoring your jaw shut and limiting the sounds you made to muffled shouts._

_It waits until you exhaust yourself, letting you fall still as it sits heavy atop you. Only when your vision is fuzzy and you’re trapped in the sensation of freefall does it move._

_A long line of drool oozes over the back of your legs, and excruciating pain rips through you as dozens of tiny, razor sharp mouths dig into the holes that the glass had left in the soles of your feet._

* * *

You jolted awake from your latest nightmare, panting in the warm air of the bedroom. You had put in for two king sized beds to replace the ones you currently slept on, but since they weren’t due to be delivered for a while you were stuck with a very uncomfortable arrangement of cots pressed together. 

One of the bad things about the cots was that if anyone shifted on top of them they could drop into one of the slots between the beds and then they were bound to wake up uncomfortable. 

Two of the beds had actually shifted away from each other so significantly that you were almost entirely swallowed by the gap, half of your body dangled between where Orange was cradling Black and where Yellow was sprawled spread-eagle over what appeared to be all of the team's pillows. 

You sighed, glancing at the clock and holding back a groan when you realized it was only three am. 

You put your feet on the ground and carefully nudged the two cots closer together, pushing them until they were flush again and the canyon of doom had vanished. 

It was only when you propped yourself back into the bed, a pillow at your back and a tablet in your hand so that you could start on the day's paperwork that you realized what had happened.

You had just stood on feet that had been crippled less than a day ago. 

You put the tablet down, walked to the bathroom, and ripped off the bandages that had been concealing your wounds.

There was nothing there, smooth, almost silvery skin had taken the place of the scars that you should have had. 

It could have been the plasma you had been given on Argoro, just kicking in late. 

You were almost positive it wasn’t. 

You fumble with the first aid kit that had been attached above the sink, yanking it down and retrieving the pair of silver scissors from inside. 

You cut yourself, just slightly, in-between two fingers where no-one would see it. 

You still bled red, and when you lifted your hand to your mouth and sucked some of the blood into your mouth, you were relieved to find that you still tasted like metal and rich, plain human meat. 

* * *

“Why the fuck are you standing?” 

You were used to the team being pissed at you. It had been over a month since you left Argoro and they were still mad. 

And when you said mad, you meant pissed, incensed, furious. Their self-imposed ‘no sex with the captain’ rule had slowly faded into a state where they wouldn’t even touch you. 

Even at night time you had begun to notice they were sleeping farther and farther away from you. Drifting over to the other side of the bed and into each others arms. 

You had begun to think they were right to do that, what with the nightmares and your latest near mental breakdown at three am, not to mention the rapid healing that made your stomach squirm and your brain whisper ‘inhuman’.

That rapid healing was probably why Black was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching you with an expression you had never seen before. 

Disgust. 

“I-” the look on his face shocked you so much that it choked you up, your heart dropping to your toes and a swooping sense of dread taking you over. “I’m healed, the plasma from the Argoro kicked in and I-” 

He rolled his eyes and turned around, walking right out of the kitchen. You were stunned, that had never happened before.

You glanced down at the plantains frying in your pan.

“But I-I made his favorite.” 

* * *

Even days later it still lingered.

_Disgust._

You couldn’t stop the constant buzz in the back of your mind even as you ran diagnostics on the latest shipment, calculating the fuel costs for the large bundles of dried plants that currently took up the entirety of your storage room. 

“Captain?” 

You make a vague sound of acknowledgement and continue with the calculations, absentmindedly chewing on the end of a pen that would probably break in your teeth and give you ink poisoning one of these days. 

“Don’t worry Orange, I’ll have the price tag on these bad boys for you in less than ten minuets.” 

“That isn’t why I’m here Captain. Would you just look at me?” 

You did, glancing at her out of the corner of your eye and then jolting to attention. 

Orange was wearing workout gear, and the image made your brain melt to mush and your mouth fill with cotton. 

She was wearing black spandex shorts that clung tightly to her hips and ass, a black sports bra being her only other piece of clothing. It clung to her wide, strong torso, highlighting her strong shoulders and the broad width of her back. 

You loved everything about Orange, but one of your favorite things by far were her freckles. 

She was covered in them, they were particularly dense on her shoulders and the high ridges of her cheeks, but they also held featuring spots on her hands, chest, and the tops of her thighs. She had a faint line high on her hips where the bathing suit Purple had urged her to wear cut off. Her freckles bordered a strip of creamy white skin on either side, peaking temptingly above her workout gear. 

Your mouth watered with the urge to lick upwards along that path. 

“I-why are you dressed like that?” 

“Because you promised me that you would spar with me?” 

You blinked. 

“I did?” 

She furrowed her brow, looking concerned. 

“Yeah, on Tuesday remember?” 

You dropped the pen out of your hands, checking the edge of your computer monitor. Sure enough, it was Thursday when you had been positive that it was Wednesday. You mentally backtracked and realized that yesterday was Wednesday, and you thought that today was Wednesday because you just didn’t remember Tuesday happening at all. 

You remembered monday night, but once you fell asleep your next discernible memory was waking up in bed yesterday. 

“Oh, yeah, I just got so sucked into the delivery.” You forced a laugh, and she smiled in a way that didn’t quite meet her eyes. 

“Good, will you join me in the gym then?” 

“Yeah, of course! Just let me get changed.” 

What the fuck had happened to Tuesday? 

* * *

“Alright Orange.” you warmed up and chugged a bottle of water before daring to step foot into the soft mats that were laid down for sparring, you had seen Orange and Blue go toe-to-toe before, and if this was going to be anything like that spar you were on a sure path to get your ass kicked. 

Sure enough, as soon as she started throwing punches you were on the defense, it took almost every ounce of concentration you could muster just to dodge her strikes, and she wasn’t holding anything back. 

“You know Captain, or Red should I say.” 

That was bad, Orange always called you Captain, the only time she called you Red was when you were in deep shit. 

“Thank you for showing up today.” 

You barely managed to block an uppercut that would have landed in your sternum, grunting then the maneuver cost you a sharp jab to your shoulder. 

“No problem, I said I’d spar.” 

You tried (and failed) to gain back some ground. She shut you down pretty quick with a roundhouse kick that slammed into your hip. 

You stumbled and she followed, raining blows onto your raised hands. 

“Except you **fucking didn’t**.” She punctuated each word with a punch, each one sure to bruise. 

Three right-hooks in a row battered your hands aside and the next thing you knew she had slipped a leg behind your knee, grabbed your shoulder, and lifted you clear off the ground.

She slammed you into the mat face-first, your breath whooshing out of your body and staying gone as she twisted your arm and rested a knee atop your ribs. 

“You never agreed to spar with me because I never asked.” Her face was a blank slate, cold, steel strong anger in her eyes. 

“You lost another day and you didn’t **fucking** tell anyone.” She put more pressure on her knee, and you gasped, unable to get enough air back into your chest. 

But at least she was touching you. 

“I fucking _trusted_ you!” 

Ouch, that hurt. She had trusted you, she had believed in you, and you had lost that trust. 

“I didn’t know!” 

It was hard to talk with her knee on your back. 

“I didn’t know I lost Tuesday until you brought it up! I swear!”

“And then when I pointed it out you said _nothing_.” She hissed, tightening her grip on your arm. 

You groaned, panting into the mat, already slick with sweat. 

“I didn’t want-” 

You cut yourself off as she made a sound of pure frustration and threw your arm back to the mat, standing and stepping back. 

“You’re not worth it.” She turned away from you and headed out of the gym. 

She didn’t look back as she got to the door.

Something shattered inside of you, you had felt it cracking as your team slowly drew away, but at the sight of Oranges retreating back it exploded under the pressure. 

You scrambled to your feet. 

“Wait!” Your breath was coming heavy, too fast. “Please Orange, wait!” 

She turned around in the doorway, the expression on her face hard, so far from the warmth that had become familiar to you. 

“I’m sorry, okay? I-I’m sorry!” 

Her expression didn’t change. 

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry for what?” 

You were desperate, you just wanted them back.

“I’m sorry for everything! For doing something so stupid on Argoro, for messing up dinner yesterday, for not telling you that I lost a day again!” You felt yourself getting more agitated. “I’m sorry for waking you up at night and-and not taking care of myself and I’m sorry for whatever I did to make Black so disgusted with me!” Whatever bit of yourself that you managed to hold together shriveled up and died. 

She took a step toward you, and even though you wanted her close to you, you retreated. 

All you could see when you looked at yourself were your mistakes; dirty, disgusting, filthy mistakes. 

If you touched her, would they stain? 

“And I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m just so sorry!” 

She was advancing faster into the room, and your chest felt tight as you backpedaled. Mercifully, she paused, and the hard expression that had been on her face changed into something you had hoped she would never have to feel.

_Devastation._

It was the last straw, and you fell to your knees in front of her. 

“Please.” You didn’t beg, not even in bed. But you would beg her for this until your voice gave out. “I’ll do anything, just please let me be in your lives again.” 

“Red.” Her face was suddenly tear streaked. “I’m so sorry, we didn’t mean for any of that to happen, we didn’t mean to make you feel like that.” 

She took a second to wipe her face. 

“I didn’t even notice what it was doing to you, I’m so sorry.” 

You were so shocked you hadn’t taken a breath since she had started talking.

“Captain.” She reached a hand out and stroked it along your cheek. “Lay back.” 

You drop from your knees directly onto your back, holding yourself up on your elbows just enough to look at her properly. 

She followed you down, placing her large hands on your knees and spreading them apart so that she could nestle herself between your legs. Your breath caught in your throat as she looked up at you with intense, relentless green eyes and then proceeded to pull your tank top up and over your head. 

She didn’t remove it entirely, just pulling it up so that it laid over your eyes and made it impossible to see anything besides a few faint specks of light. 

Heavy, hot hands gripped under your knees, hauling your legs upwards until your back bowed and breath was feathering against the fabric of your shorts. 

She placed your legs on her shoulders, just a bit above your knees. It forced you to keep your body bent in a position that burned so sweetly you couldn’t resist letting your mouth fall open desperately. Two long, lithe fingers snaked their way onto your tongue. You regretted that you couldn’t see them, spotted with freckles as they slid between your lips. 

“I’m so sorry Captain, it’s okay now, I’m going to take care of you.” A flash behind your eyelids summons the image of her face as you fell apart in front of her. What did she look like now? Was that devastation still there? 

“Shhhh.” she pressed a kiss to your stomach, soothing you as her free hand slid under the waistband of your shorts and underwear, pulling them over your knees and exposing you to the hot fall of her breath. Your pants dangled off of one ankle where your legs were positioned over her shoulders.

Your thighs shivered and clenched, tightening around her head. 

She let out a faint gasp, and you squeezed her even tighter. 

She pulled her fingers out of your mouth with a wet pop, bringing that hand to draw gentle circles around the rim of your entrance as her mouth slowly descended over the entirety of your clit, gently sucking and feathering her tongue over the sensitive little bud. 

A groan ripped itself from you, your hands scrambling for some kind of purchase on the slick mat. 

You ended up clenching your fists as tightly as you could. Trying desperately not to finish immediately. 

It had been so long, and her mouth felt so good as it slowly worked pleasure from you in dizzying spirals. 

Her mouth was hot and soft and warm, she hummed, and the vibration made your eyes cross, sparks lancing up your spine as she ran her tongue eagerly along your dripping slit. 

She slipped a finger inside of you with her nose still pressed flush to your skin. 

Her fingers were long and dexterous, even just one of them was almost more than you could take without finishing. She easily curled it inside of you and found the spot that made you inhale sharply and buck into her hand. She began a light rhythm of circling. Every bush and touch made silver sparks dance behind your eyes.

You were panting, practically drooling as the tip of her second finger eased its way inside. 

The stretch, paired with the pain of your bowed position and the steady suction around your clit pushed you to the edge faster than you thought possible. 

“Wa-wait Orange I’m gonna-” You fisted your hands in her vibrant red hair and shuddered as instead of pulling off, she bent your hips further upward and started thrusting her fingers insistently. Milking a frantic sound out of your mouth as your focus changed from getting her away to holding on for dear life. 

If you could have seen anything your vision would have gone black as you finished into her mouth, your hips jerking uncontrollably as you bucked up into her hold. 

She lay you on the floor tenderly once she was done working you through one of the most intense orgasms you had ever had.

“Hey there Captain.” She carefully pulled your shorts and underwear up, removing the makeshift blindfold and letting the world back in. “Are you okay?”

Your eyes fluttered. 

“Captain? Captain!” 

You felt kind of floaty. Part of it was good, the endorphins, the warm touch of Oranges hands on your cheeks, the faint, familiar scent of sex and sweat.

More of it was bad. You were confused, they had been pulling away for so long and now….what was happening? You couldn’t stop thinking about how they had looked at you. 

_Disgust._

_Devastation._

You couldn’t talk down the voice that told you it was only natural for them to finally realize the truth.

You weren’t worthy of them. 

You faintly heard Orange scream as your eyes rolled back in your head and you passed out where you lay on the mat. 


	23. Orange you glad it's getting worse? (Male Version)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're trying your best to ignore it, you swear. 
> 
> TW: mentions of self harm, violence, unsafe sexual practices.

_You were numb, listless as you waited for the creature to finish chewing the last of the meat off of your left arm._

_It was taking pleasure in it, already having feasted on your other arm and your left calf. It had been ecstatic when it figured out that you could lose limbs and live, resulting in a drawn out meal to ‘keep the meat fresh’._

_“How nice of your little crew to leave you behind for me.” It practically purred at you, trying to get you to talk to it._

_The imposter was a strangely social creature, it could barely go a few hours without peeking its head through the door to the med bay and watching you._

_It still hadn’t figured out that the rest of the crew had escaped on your order._

_Well, not exactly on your order._

_You had forced them to go by holding yourself at gunpoint. As stupid and reckless as it was, you put a gun to your own head and then marched them into an escape pod. You sent them on a direct trajectory to Ir’leegghr; it was an earth-like planet with a large population of human colonists that tended to honeybee farms._

_You thought they would be happy there, if they could get Yellow over his overwhelming fear of bugs._

_“You're drifting off again Red, you didn’t bleed too much before I applied that tourniquet did you?”_

_You knew that on some level, the imposter needed you. It needed you to pilot the ship to it’s next feeding ground, which was why it was holding its hunger at bay by taking nibbles from your body instead of just feasting all at once. It was starving, you could see it in the way it looked at you._

_You didn’t respond, staring listlessly at the far wall._

_“Oh Reeeeed.”_

_You were mad at how it had rearranged Blacks filing systems. He had a spot for everything, and seeing the saline just sitting on the table instead of it’s proper storage would drive him batshit insane. He was anal about everything being in it’s correct place in his medical bay._

_“Captain?” Blacks large, supple hands landed on either side of your face, gently cupping your cheeks and lifting you head so that you were staring into his dark, deep eyes. Blue-toned black eyes. Black like the space between the stars or the darkness at the lights edge of a campfire._

_You turned your head slightly and pressed a kiss to the center of those palms, the ones that held desperately when you let him pump paralytics into your veins and have complete control for as long as they lasted, the ones that clasped tight to your thighs while your fingers were around his neck, the ones that you had woken to a dozen times, finger pads resting against your pulse point as you slept._

_You opened your mouth as wide as it would go and sunk your teeth into the skin between his thumb and pointer finger._

_The sound that left his mouth was inhuman, he tore himself away and dropped to his knees._

_You chewed the flap of flesh you had torn off, swallowing it heavily._

_“Captain?” Black looked up at you, horrified, but you only bared your teeth and ran your tongue across the stain of blood that saturated your chin._

_“Don’t bother, you don’t taste human.”_

_It snarled in the mask of Blacks face, no longer able to hold back from melting into its original form and lunging for your broken body in the chair._

_Your last sensations were the lashings of its tentacles wrapping around your body, it forced strands of itself into your nose and wrenched, tearing your head clear off your neck._

* * *

You wake up and groan softly, rubbing your hand across your face. 

You were trying to leave it alone, you really were. You had crawled back into bed the night you found out that your crew were classified as assets and curled around Purple's body, trying desperately to pretend that everything was okay. 

You rationalized it to yourself, explaining to your internal critic that there was no reason to poke around in something clearly dangerous when everything was working out fine.

Your crew was safe, you were staying on schedule, you had food in the fridge and plenty of extra money to keep up with the (frankly ridiculous) condom bill you managed to rack up every month. 

As your friend who lived out of the back of a van used to say: don’t poke the bear. 

Yeah, the bear reared its ugly head without said poke.

Even though you were getting better physically, the nightmares had gotten worse. 

They didn’t feature the White that you had seen in the mugshot. When white had been human, he was a tall man with a head full of early-graying hair and half a face full of scars. He grinned cheekily at the camera, and was admittedly handsome. The ear on his scarred side was completely gone, with the other pierced from the lobe all the way to the shell. 

Some time between when that picture was taken and you woke up on the ship, he had been replaced with the abomination that you now saw every time you closed your eyes. 

Or maybe he had always been that thing, and revealed himself to the original crew back before you woke up on the floor. 

* * *

_You were sitting in your wheelchair, typing away at a mission request. You detailed your timeline and your ship's large cargo capacity, stating your capability for taking two separate orders in one trip._

_Your cast was off, Black had been floored when the bones appeared to knit themselves together over the course of a month, a healing process that was supposed to take at least ten had been mysteriously reduced to a fraction._

_You contacted Argoro and asked them what they had pumped into your body to make you heal so fast, they told you that they had never seen anything like it before, and after some review told you that it was probably a reaction to the plasma transfusion they had given you, it had been specifically formulated for Michali and was seeded with stem cells, which could account for your accelerated healing._

_It was just a shame that the magic juice didn’t seem to extend to your feet._

_They still hurt like a bitch, and you had refused any painkillers stronger than Advil after your first week on morphine._

_Morphine made you sleepy, and you weren’t fond of that; you were even less fond of how incredibly horny it made you in a time when you were under a strict ‘no sex’ order._

_And- well seriously like no sex at all, they really loved to torment you for getting yourself hurt and while you agreed that you had done something incredibly stupid, hadn’t you already suffered enough?_

_You sighed, once again distracted from your work. You gave your cheeks a little slap and rested your fingers back on the keyboard. Just as you did, you felt a cold draft touch your cheek. That would normally be okay in an office building on earth, you would have rationalized it away as the AC kicking on._

_There was no AC on your ship, there wasn’t much temperature control at all, instead air was constantly and consistently vented through the ship. The current of air never turned off or on, which meant that if you felt a draft that hadn’t been there before then it meant that something had been blocking it; and that something had moved._

_You slowly turn around in your chair, staring into the vent behind you. It was dark, as it always was, and nothing moved from within it._

_You wheel yourself over and stare down at it. After a moment, you gather the courage to hook your fingers through the metal grating and tug at it._

_It pops out without any resistance._

_Before you have the opportunity to react to what you found, you’re hit behind with something that's so heavy it knocks you clean out of the chair._

_It lashes around you in a hundred tentacles, binding you from your wrists to your ankles. Some of its incredible bulk sits on the small of your back, pushing you into the ground and punching the air from you so harshly that you have no breath left to scream._

_It takes advantage of your gasp and lashes a tendril around your head, anchoring your jaw shut and limiting the sounds you made to muffled shouts._

_It waits until you exhaust yourself, letting you fall still as it sits heavy atop you. Only when your vision is fuzzy and you’re trapped in the sensation of freefall does it move._

_A long line of drool oozes over the back of your legs, and excruciating pain rips through you as dozens of tiny, razor sharp mouths dig into the holes that the glass had left in the soles of your feet._

* * *

You jolted awake from your latest nightmare, panting in the warm air of the bedroom. You had put in for two king sized beds to replace the ones you currently slept on, but since they weren’t due to be delivered for a while you were stuck with a very uncomfortable arrangement of cots pressed together. 

One of the bad things about the cots was that if anyone shifted on top of them they could drop into one of the slots between the beds and then they were bound to wake up uncomfortable. 

Two of the beds had actually shifted away from each other so significantly that you were almost entirely swallowed by the gap, half of your body dangled between where Orange was cradling Black and where Yellow was sprawled spread-eagle over what appeared to be all of the team's pillows. 

You sighed, glancing at the clock and holding back a groan when you realized it was only three am. 

You put your feet on the ground and carefully nudged the two cots closer together, pushing them until they were flush again and the canyon of doom had vanished. 

It was only when you propped yourself back into the bed, a pillow at your back and a tablet in your hand so that you could start on the day's paperwork that you realized what had happened.

You had just stood on feet that had been crippled less than a day ago. 

You put the tablet down, walked to the bathroom, and ripped off the bandages that had been concealing your wounds.

There was nothing there, smooth, almost silvery skin had taken the place of the scars that you should have had. 

It could have been the plasma you had been given on Argoro, just kicking in late. 

You were almost positive it wasn’t. 

You fumble with the first aid kit that had been attached above the sink, yanking it down and retrieving the pair of silver scissors from inside. 

You cut yourself, just slightly, in-between two fingers where no-one would see it. 

You still bled red, and when you lifted your hand to your mouth and sucked some of the blood into your mouth, you were relieved to find that you still tasted like metal and rich, plain human meat. 

* * *

“Why the fuck are you standing?” 

You were used to the team being pissed at you. It had been over a month since you left Argoro and they were still mad. 

And when you said mad, you meant pissed, incensed, furious. Their self-imposed ‘no sex with the captain’ rule had slowly faded into a state where they wouldn’t even touch you. 

Even at night time you had begun to notice they were sleeping farther and farther away from you. Drifting over to the other side of the bed and into each others arms. 

You had begun to think they were right to do that, what with the nightmares and your latest near mental breakdown at three am, not to mention the rapid healing that made your stomach squirm and your brain whisper ‘inhuman’.

That rapid healing was probably why Black was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching you with an expression you had never seen before. 

Disgust. 

“I-” the look on his face shocked you so much that it choked you up, your heart dropping to your toes and a swooping sense of dread taking you over. “I’m healed, the plasma from the Argoro kicked in and I-” 

He rolled his eyes and turned around, walking right out of the kitchen. You were stunned, that had never happened before.

You glanced down at the plantains frying in your pan.

“But I-I made his favorite.” 

* * *

Even days later it still lingered.

_Disgust._

You couldn’t stop the constant buzz in the back of your mind even as you ran diagnostics on the latest shipment, calculating the fuel costs for the large bundles of dried plants that currently took up the entirety of your storage room. 

“Captain?” 

You make a vague sound of acknowledgement and continue with the calculations, absentmindedly chewing on the end of a pen that would probably break in your teeth and give you ink poisoning one of these days. 

“Don’t worry Orange, I’ll have the price tag on these bad boys for you in less than ten minuets.” 

“That isn’t why I’m here Captain. Would you just look at me?” 

You did, glancing at her out of the corner of your eye and then jolting to attention. 

Orange was wearing workout gear, and the image made your brain melt to mush and your mouth fill with cotton. 

She was wearing black spandex shorts that clung tightly to her hips and ass, a black sports bra being her only other piece of clothing. It clung to her wide, strong torso, highlighting her strong shoulders and the broad width of her back. 

You loved everything about Orange, but one of your favorite things by far were her freckles. 

She was covered in them, they were particularly dense on her shoulders and the high ridges of her cheeks, but they also held featuring spots on her hands, chest, and the tops of her thighs. She had a faint line high on her hips where the bathing suit Purple had urged her to wear cut off. Her freckles bordered a strip of creamy white skin on either side, peaking temptingly above her workout gear. 

Your mouth watered with the urge to lick upwards along that path. 

“I-why are you dressed like that?” 

“Because you promised me that you would spar with me?” 

You blinked. 

“I did?” 

She furrowed her brow, looking concerned. 

“Yeah, on Tuesday remember?” 

You dropped the pen out of your hands, checking the edge of your computer monitor. Sure enough, it was Thursday when you had been positive that it was Wednesday. You mentally backtracked and realized that yesterday was Wednesday, and you thought that today was Wednesday because you just didn’t remember Tuesday happening at all. 

You remembered Monday night, but once you fell asleep your next discernible memory was waking up in bed yesterday. 

“Oh, yeah, I just got so sucked into the delivery.” You forced a laugh, and she smiled in a way that didn’t quite meet her eyes. 

“Good, will you join me in the gym then?” 

“Yeah, of course! Just let me get changed.” 

What the fuck had happened to Tuesday? 

* * *

“Alright Orange.” you warmed up and chugged a bottle of water before daring to step foot into the soft mats that were laid down for sparring, you had seen Orange and Blue go toe-to-toe before, and if this was going to be anything like that spar you were on a sure path to get your ass kicked. 

Sure enough, as soon as she started throwing punches you were on the defense, it took almost every ounce of concentration you could muster just to dodge her strikes, and she wasn’t holding anything back. 

“You know Captain, or Red should I say.” 

That was bad, Orange always called you Captain, the only time she called you Red was when you were in deep shit. 

“Thank you for showing up today.” 

You barely managed to block an uppercut that would have landed in your sternum, grunting then the maneuver cost you a sharp jab to your shoulder. 

“No problem, I said I’d spar.” 

You tried (and failed) to gain back some ground. She shut you down pretty quick with a roundhouse kick that slammed into your hip. 

You stumbled and she followed, raining blows onto your raised hands. 

“Except you **fucking didn’t**.” She punctuated each word with a punch, each one sure to bruise. 

Three right-hooks in a row battered your hands aside and the next thing you knew she had slipped a leg behind your knee, grabbed your shoulder, and lifted you clear off the ground.

She slammed you into the mat face-first, your breath whooshing out of your body and staying gone as she twisted your arm and rested a knee atop your ribs. 

“You never agreed to spar with me because I never asked.” Her face was a blank slate, cold, steel strong anger in her eyes. 

“You lost another day and you didn’t **fucking** tell anyone.” She put more pressure on her knee, and you gasped, unable to get enough air back into your chest. 

But at least she was touching you. 

“I fucking _trusted_ you!” 

Ouch, that hurt. She had trusted you, she had believed in you, and you had lost that trust. 

“I didn’t know!” 

It was hard to talk with her knee on your back. 

“I didn’t know I lost Tuesday until you brought it up! I swear!”

“And then when I pointed it out you said _nothing_.” She hissed, tightening her grip on your arm. 

You groaned, panting into the mat, already slick with sweat. 

“I didn’t want-” 

You cut yourself off as she made a sound of pure frustration and threw your arm back to the mat, standing and stepping back. 

“You’re not worth it.” She turned away from you and headed out of the gym. 

She didn’t look back as she got to the door.

Something shattered inside of you, you had felt it cracking as your team slowly drew away, but at the sight of Oranges retreating back it exploded under the pressure. 

You scrambled to your feet. 

“Wait!” Your breath was coming heavy, too fast. “Please Orange, wait!” 

She turned around in the doorway, the expression on her face hard, so far from the warmth that had become familiar to you. 

“I’m sorry, okay? I-I’m sorry!” 

Her expression didn’t change. 

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry for what?” 

You were desperate, you just wanted them back.

“I’m sorry for everything! For doing something so stupid on Argoro, for messing up dinner yesterday, for not telling you that I lost a day again!” You felt yourself getting more agitated. “I’m sorry for waking you up at night and-and not taking care of myself and I’m sorry for whatever I did to make Black so disgusted with me!” Whatever bit of yourself that you managed to hold together shriveled up and died. 

She took a step toward you, and even though you wanted her close to you, you retreated. 

All you could see when you looked at yourself were your mistakes; dirty, disgusting, filthy mistakes. 

If you touched her, would they stain? 

“And I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m just so sorry!” 

She was advancing faster into the room, and your chest felt tight as you backpedaled. Mercifully, she paused, and the hard expression that had been on her face changed into something you had hoped she would never have to feel.

_Devastation._

It was the last straw, and you fell to your knees in front of her. 

“Please.” You didn’t beg, not even in bed. But you would beg her for this until your voice gave out. “I’ll do anything, just please let me be in your lives again.” 

“Red.” Her face was suddenly tear streaked. “I’m so sorry, we didn’t mean for any of that to happen, we didn’t mean to make you feel like that.” 

She took a second to wipe her face. 

“I didn’t even notice what it was doing to you, I’m so sorry.” 

You were so shocked you hadn’t taken a breath since she had started talking.

“Captain.” She reached a hand out and stroked it along your cheek. “Lay back.” 

You drop from your knees directly onto your back, holding yourself up on your elbows just enough to look at her properly. 

She followed you down, placing her large hands on your knees and spreading them apart so that she could nestle herself between your legs. Your breath caught in your throat as she looked up at you with intense, relentless green eyes and then proceeded to pull your tank top up and over your head. 

She didn’t remove it entirely, just pulling it up so that it laid over your eyes and made it impossible to see anything besides a few faint specks of light. 

Heavy, hot hands gripped under your knees, hauling your legs upwards until your back bowed and breath was feathering against the fabric of your shorts. 

She placed your legs on her shoulders, just a bit above your knees. It forced you to keep your body bent in a position that burned so sweetly you couldn’t resist letting your mouth fall open desperately. Two long, lithe fingers snaked their way onto your tongue. You regretted that you couldn’t see them, spotted with freckles as they slid between your lips. 

“I’m so sorry Captain, it’s okay now, I’m going to take care of you.” A flash behind your eyelids summons the image of her face as you fell apart in front of her. What did she look like now? Was that devastation still there?

“Shhhh.” she pressed a kiss to your stomach, soothing you as her free hand slid under the waistband of your shorts and underwear, pulling them over your knees and exposing you to the hot fall of her breath. Your pants dangled off of one ankle where your legs were positioned over her shoulders.

Your thighs shivered and clenched, tightening around her head. 

She let out a faint gasp, and you squeezed her even tighter. 

She pulled her fingers out of your mouth with a wet pop, bringing that hand to draw gentle circles around the rim of your ass as her mouth slowly descended over the tip of your cock, gently sucking and feathering her tongue into the slit. 

A groan ripped itself from you, your hands scrambling for some kind of purchase on the slick mat. 

You ended up clenching your fists as tightly as you could. Trying desperately not to finish immediately. 

It had been so long, and her mouth felt so good as it slowly descended downwards; hot and tight and warm. She hummed around the shaft and ran her tongue eagerly along the vein. 

She slipped a finger inside of you just as her nose pressed flush to your skin. She had no gag reflex to speak of. 

Her fingers were long and dexterous, even just one of them was almost more than you could take without finishing. She easily found your prostate, and once she found that spot she began a light rhythm of circling. Every bush and touch made silver sparks dance behind your eyes.

You were panting, practically drooling as the tip of her second finger eased its way inside. 

The stretch, paired with the pain of your bowed position and the steady suction around your dick pushed you to the edge faster than you thought possible. 

“Wa-wait Orange I’m gonna-” You fisted your hands in her vibrant red hair and shuddered as instead of pulling off, she bent your hips further upward and started thrusting her fingers insistently. Milking a frantic sound out of your mouth as your focus changed from getting her away to holding on for dear life. 

If you could have seen anything your vision would have gone black as you finished into her mouth, your hips jerking uncontrollably as you bucked up into her hold. 

She lay you on the floor tenderly once she was done working you through one of the most intense orgasms you had ever had.

“Hey there Captain.” She carefully pulled your shorts and underwear up, removing the makeshift blindfold and letting the world back in. “Are you okay?”

Your eyes fluttered. 

“Captain? Captain!” 

You felt kind of floaty. Part of it was good, the endorphins, the warm touch of Oranges hands on your cheeks, the faint, familiar scent of sex and sweat.

More of it was bad. You were confused, they had been pulling away for so long and now….what was happening? You couldn’t stop thinking about how they had looked at you. 

_Disgust._

_Devastation._

You couldn’t talk down the voice that told you it was only natural for them to finally realize the truth.

You weren’t worthy of them. 

You faintly heard Orange scream as your eyes rolled back in your head and you passed out where you lay on the mat. 


	24. Bloody Someday (Male Version)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disaster has struck, but it's on to the next planet whether or not you're ready for it.  
> TW: Bloodplay, knifeplay, unsafe sex. Chapter can be read with or without porn, I'll put a warning before the porn starts so you can skip it.

It was supposed to be a punishment, something to get the Captain to realize how badly he had messed up. It was supposed to get him to apologize. 

It was never supposed to  _ break _ him.

“What the fuck happened?” The crew stood around the captain's body in the med bay. Under all of the covers, Red looked positively diminutive. 

It was Purple that spoke, breaking the tense silence and sniffling into the sleeves of her casuals, she had started crying out of pure frustration almost immediately after she got the news that Red had passed out on the mats; even hours later, it hadn’t stopped. 

She had been the loudest voice against their planned ‘punishment’ for the captain, she felt the pure agony of not being able to comfort and reassure someone more potently than anyone else on the ship. 

Every time the captain tried to win her over with gifts, every time he tried to touch her, every time that crestfallen look struck him, Purple almost abandoned the plan entirely.

Now, as the crew looked at their Captain, they wished that they had let her. 

“I thought you said that this wouldn’t-” she broke herself off with a sound of pure agony. 

She had thought it wouldn’t hurt the Captain, just like they all had. They had all forgotten how good he was at hiding his own mental state, assumed that his stalwart presence meant that he was coping, and pushed to even more extreme measures to get him to realize just how badly he had messed up.

“It wasn’t supposed to.” Orange was quiet, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of herself. 

Black fiddled with one of the Captains hands.

“Cap passed out from stress.” For such a big man, he managed to look tiny as he sat at the bedside, obsessively checking the monitors and saline drip that ran into the crook of the captain's arm. “Stress.” a hysterical laugh bubbled out of his throat. “He thought I was _ disgusted _ with him. I-we messed up.” 

“Messed up?” Yellow stood from his chair, agitated. “We more than messed up, we _ fucked _ up. He could have passed out anywhere, we were lucky it was when he was laying down! And in case you guys haven’t noticed, we were hurting ourselves too! Tell me that treating him like that didn’t make you hate yourself.” 

Blue flinched, though they hadn’t been as harsh as some of the others, it was particularly hard for them to withdraw physical affection from someone. It was their love language. 

“Captain did look pretty sad about it.” they murmured, eyes glassy from where they were cast toward the ground. 

“Cap looked fucking devastated!” Yellow wasn’t one to mince words. “And it was our fucking fault in case you didn’t realize!”

“It was your idea!” Purple shouted from her spot at the bedside. 

“I fucking know that! And I’m taking responsibility, but we all did it and now we all have to FIX this!” 

The room went silent again. 

How could they fix something so disastrous?

* * *

It was becoming far too common of an occurrence for you to wake up with a needle in your arm and the sharp smell of disinfectant in the air. 

The room was empty when you woke this time, you had hoped that things might have gone back to normal, but the lack of warmth pressed around you told you that the hope might have been misplaced. 

You sighed and sat up. Frowning when the blankets proved to be strangely heavy. 

You peeled back the comforter and a soft grin touched your lips when you realized that someone had placed a weighted blanket over your body. 

They were caring, even though you had fucked up so badly. 

“Captain?” You look up slowly, petrified to find Black standing in the doorway to the medbay. 

You knew you looked like a deer in the headlights, the blood draining from your face as you saw him walk into the room. He had a cup of noodles and a glass of milk in his hands. 

“Oh Cap.” He put the food down and was across the room before you had time to process the motion. 

He swung himself onto the bed with you in one, clean motion, straddling your hips and running his hands up your neck to cup your face. 

“I’m so sorry.” 

He crushed his lips to yours like he was a drowning man and you were air. 

“I didn’t notice what it was doing to you. I got so caught up and so mad and just-” He couldn’t keep his hands off of you. His fingers were running over your cheekbones, tucking hair behind your ears, stroking at the muscles running down your neck. “Captain I am so sorry.” 

He showered kisses over your face, unwilling to let you go for even a moment. Your hands hesitantly came up to rest on his hips. His eyes looked so big, so sad and wide. You wished that you knew what was happening, but your head still felt floating in the clouds and you couldn’t stop thinking about the last time that he had looked at you. 

_ Disgust.  _

You squeezed his hips, your hands digging into the texture of his coveralls. He felt real enough, but some of your dreams had gotten pretty good at copying your waking hours. 

“Captain, are you with me?” He lifted your chin back up, an unfathomably fond smile in place as he looked at you. “Hey.” 

His voice was soft, and his hands warm and huge against your jaw. 

You brought your hand up to his wrist and tugged it away from your face. 

“Black?” You ran a hand over the back of his hand, feeling the ridges of his knuckles. 

“Yeah, it’s me.” 

“You’re not real.” 

His hands dropped, and you saw a faint tremble in his bottom lip.

“What?” his voice came out broken, but you just shook your head and laid back down, turning under his body so that you could nestle back under the layers of blankets. 

“Captain?” His voice was choked, high. You pulled the blankets over your head and waited to wake up. 

* * *

It felt too good to be true, since you returned from Argoro, everything had felt like a nightmare, and to suddenly experience such a large change in your team's attitude toward you made you (for lack of a better term) cautious to let them closer to you. 

You kept thinking back to some of the wonton dreams you had after Argoro. Sweet, beautiful dreams that only made it more painful to wake up and realized that they weren’t the truth. 

It certainly didn’t help that your dreams were so clear and vivid that they occasionally overlapped directly into reality. The space between your sleeping and waking hours had gotten significantly slimmer and a lot fuzzier since the nightmares began and the emotions from them slipped right through.

It was hard to tell when you were awake and asleep anymore, even more so since your crew had gotten distant. 

Everything just turned into a consistent, turbulent ring of emotions that spiraled slowly tighter and tighter until you were wrapped in it. 

“Captain?” Your personal hell included your crew and the constant sadness and guilt that flowed out of them. You wondered when the nightmare would decide it had lulled you into enough of a sense of security and turn them against you again.

These days you spent so much time working through your duties and trying to figure out if you could trust your own eyes that you had stopped pretty much anything else. Time with the crew, cooking, working out, all of it went away while you lived through the strange, fuzzy state that was now all consuming. 

You turn to where Yellow was in the doorway.

“Hhhhmmm?” You had decided that engaging with your own mind as little as possible was the best way to get through this unscathed. 

“I just wanted to let you know that the electrical work on that new transmitter is done.” 

“Mmm.” 

You checked off that job on the list of his to-dos, practically on autopilot. 

“Captain, Red, look at me for a second.” You did, because he sounded so calm, and that was something you were pretty sure even a dream state would have trouble making up. 

He took your face between his palms and forced you to look at him. 

“I know that you’re in there, rationalizing this behavior of yours, and I get it, I do. You’re just-” He paused, looking at you with a touch too much longing. “-Protecting yourself. But you have to come back. Maybe you can’t do that right now, but you have to come back.” 

You felt  _ something.  _ You weren’t sure what it was, but it was the strongest positive emotion that you had felt since your crew started to draw away. 

Was it desire? Thankfulness? Whatever it was, it was faint and swam at the back of your mind. 

“I don’t- I don’t get it?” You were right in front of him, didn’t that make you ‘there’? 

“I know you don’t, and that’s okay, just keep in mind that you need to come back.” 

You watched him as he left, that unidentified feeling tugging like a string toward him. It felt like someone you were only loosely attached to really wanted to follow him. 

* * *

_ You were in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around your waist when you felt someone watching you. You had waited until the crew was done with their showers before you entered, doing your best to avoid looking at them. _

_ Even though you were dreaming (because you had to be dreaming). You still felt a trickle of fear as one of the shower curtains drew back. _

_ The imposter had gotten better at it’s White form. It still had eyes that looked wrong, but there was more life to them now, borderline emotion as it looked at you. It smiles as it approaches, vicious and mean. _

_ “All mine now captain, aren’t you?” It stands behind you and rests its paper-pale hands on your shoulders. You just shook your head.  _

_ You went back to brushing your teeth.  _

_ It didn’t seem to like that.  _

_ “Red? This is normally the part where you start screaming.”  _

_ You spat your toothpaste out and brushed it’s hands off of your shoulders, making a bee-line for the stack of clothes you left neatly folded one one of the benches by the lockers. _

_ “Go fuck yourslelf.”  _

_ Normally, when you had similar dreams, that was about the time that the creature decided that it would kill you; but this time it flinched back, looking almost confused before its expression morphed into a snarl.  _

_ “What? I didn’t break you that much did I? Was my visit on Tuesday too much for you?”  _

_ You scoffed.  _

_ “I don’t remember a god-damned thing about Tuesday.” You yanked your pants on, turning your back to it completely in the process. “Now I am going to finish dressing, and when I turn around you will be gone.”  _

_ It let out something that could have been a laugh, gargling and raspy. _

_ “And why would I do that?”  _

_ You yanked on your tank top. _

_ “Because you are not real, you are a dream or a hallucination.”  _

_ It’s laughter cut off in a shocked, choking sound.  _

_ “And even if you were real-” you yanked on a sock with more force than necessary. “You haven’t killed me yet, which means you either can’t, or won’t, so when I turn around, you will be gone.”  _

_ There was a moment of silence. _

_ “You-you-what happened to you?”  _

_ You ignored it’s question.  _

_ “Three, two-” you pulled on your last sock “-one.”  _

_ Sure enough, you turned around and faced an empty bathroom. _

* * *

“Ummm, Captain?” you glanced up at the chair beside you. 

“Yes Green?” 

“It’s almost clock-out time.” 

You hummed, still checking the orbital position for tomorrow's descent onto Druagantu, a planet almost entirely covered in water.

“I can see that.” 

“Do you-” even with your eyes locked onto the screen, you could tell he was flushed. “Do you want to meet me after dinner?” 

“Eh?” You chewed on the end of your pencil. “What for?” 

“I-well I was hoping-” You glanced up at him; sure enough, his face was rosy. “I mean I was wondering if you would like to-” he hesitated, blush intensifying. “Would you like to join me? In the showers tonight?” 

Your jaw fell open a little at his request. Green  _ never _ initiated sex. 

“Look Green, I really don’t think that’s the best idea right now-” 

“Why not?” his hand came to rest on the cuff of your uniform, his fingers slipping inward and caressing your wrist. He looked desperate, bordering on panicking. “Do you not love-” 

You slapped a hand across his mouth, voice dark. 

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” 

You didn’t know what you looked like as you growled at him, but it must have been something downright scary. Above your hand, his eyes went wide. He nodded minutely against the pressure of your palm, afraid to move too much. 

You let out a long sigh, slumping forward a bit and lessening the force of your fingers until they were just barely sitting over his lips. 

How did you explain to him that you were afraid this was a dream? That the second you engaged in too much physical contact with your crew that they would dissolve into the imposter, teeth bared as it looked at you and stoked the increasingly familiar feeling of horror and guilt that came with touching that creature, that  _ monster, _ and mistaking it for someone that you were supposed to love?

Instead of saying any of that, you leaned forward and pressed a brief kiss to the back of the hand that was clasped over his mouth. 

“Look, it’s dinner soon right? It’s Purples day?.” He nodded again, eyes still wide, but holding less panic, instead there was a fragile softness, almost a hope. 

“I’ll make Injera and Tibs then, do you think she’d like orange granita or mint-blackberry cream puffs for dessert.” 

You let go of his mouth, and were rewarded with a faint smile. 

“I think the granita.” 

That night, you cooked for your team. It was the first time in over a week. 

* * *

Druagantu was a blue planet, over ninety percent ocean with only the occasional, small island to break the endless sea. 

As such, it’s residents were well adapted for life in the water. 

They were mermaids. 

“Ah, you must be Captain Red.” You had landed on a Skeld ocean liner, and had begun unloading the cargo while you waited for your contact to arrive and offer you further instructions. “Am I pronouncing that correctly? Red as in the color.” 

The voice talking was raspy, obviously unused to your language. Most creatures were incapable of human speech, even the few that were often used translators. 

You were surprised and impressed that someone still bothered to learn other languages. 

“Yes, that’s perfect!” You step toward where your contact was waiting for you, propped on the edge of a pool of water. 

The craft that you had landed on was actually designed with a series of shafts that went from the deck straight through the hundreds of layers of the ship. The natives of Druagantu could swim through the shafts and through shallow canals to access the storage units and any ships that landed on the surface of the carrier. 

“You must be Soga, I hope I'm pronouncing that right as well!” You let out a soft chuckle as you rush over and take Soga in. “May I ask for your pronouns?” 

“Ah-” he thought about it. “I suppose that the closest identifier in this language is he/they. May I ask the same of you?” 

“He/him please.” 

Soga would have been over seven feet tall if his torso was on a human. As it was, you could see his tail drooping into the water, a glimmering expanse of indigo scales that must have been well over ten feet long. 

They smiled, eyes black as night and teeth sharp, as close as you were, you saw that there was more than one layer of teeth. They had deep, tan skin, their upper body rippling with muscle and scattered with glinting indigo scales up until they faded into his hair; a gray so pale it was almost white cut to reveal intricate swirls and ripples. 

Those black eyes flickered over your entire body, taking in everything from your work boots to the hair you hadn’t cut in months. 

“Well Captain, it is my pleasure to meet you.” His voice got lower, raspier. 

“No, the pleasure is all mine, on behalf of my crew I would like to thank you for welcoming us.” 

He tilted his head, a forked tongue flicking out of his mouth for a moment so brief you thought you had imagined it. 

“Nonsense,” it was gone before you had the chance to fully register it. “It’s always a pleasure to come to the docks, it gives me a change to practice my language skills.” 

“Really, how many do you speak?” You were trying to make polite conversation while Blue finished unloading the hold, but you were taken aback when Soga smiled casually and replied.

“Two hundred and twenty six, thirty nine if you count my home dialects.” 

Your mouth dropped open. 

“You-you’re pulling my leg?” 

He grinned at you.

“That would be a human idiom correct? A way of asking if I jest? I assure you I do not.” 

“Yeah, that’s right it is an idiom. How did you learn so many languages?” You began pulling up the paperwork for the cargo. 

“Well this is a port, I grew up around here, and I also used to work at the healing vats before I got this job. They are very popular tourist locations.”

“The healing vats?” you handed the tablet with the paperwork over to him. 

“Yes, springs on the islands are quite popular, we enrich the water with herbs for customers that stay at the resorts. Actually-” he scrawled something on the report “that is what your delivery is for, we will be transporting them to the resorts from here.” He hauled himself out of the water, perching on the lip of the pool. Water sloshed out and soaked your boots with his motions.

“Oh! I apologize!” 

You laughed lightly.

“It’s no trouble, they’ll dry.” You step forward and reach for the tablet, but before you can take it into your hand the water erupts upwards, a Druagantuian just as large as Soga surfacing right beside you.

Water washed over you in a wave, soaking your coveralls and underclothes. You heard a deep, rhythmic rumble as you wiped water out of your eyes. 

The ocean was a lot less salty than those on earth, it didn’t even sting your eyes as it dripped off of your lashes. 

When you finally came around, you were met with a Druagantuian. They had white hair and eyes so light they were almost colorless. Their bottom half could only be described as an enormous shark, fifteen-odd feet of pure muscle whipping the water into a frenzy. 

The deep rumble you heard belonged to vocalizations coming from their chest, Soga returned a similar sound, his own tail stirring the water, agitated. He glanced at you, then did a double take as he realized that you were dripping wet. He pointed between you and the second Druagantuian for a moment, speaking rapidly. 

The Druagantuian that had soaked you turned to you, hauling themselves out of the water on ridiculously muscular arms so that they could perch on the edge of the shaft and bow their head to you. 

“Sorry.” they said, clearly not as experienced with English as their counterpart. 

“It’s alright, it’s nothing that won’t dry before we have to leave.'' The air on Druagantu was warm, and though the water was cold it wasn’t unpleasant. 

Soga glanced at the other Druagantuian. 

“About your departure-” he gestured to the other being, their head still bowed in your direction and spoke to him softly in their own language, once he was done, they seemed to perk up, lifting their head from it’s inclined position. “This is Osqan, he is one of the best undersea engineers that we have.” 

Osqan seemed to perk up at his name. 

“He just informed me that there was an incident with the fuel that was supposed to go to your ship, a few days ago we had an emergency at sea and had to airlift an exploration vessel onto dry land, the fuel that was supposed to go to your ship was used and because of the circumstances, there has not yet been a chance for the replenishment shipment. The closest supply facility is a two day trip.” 

You took a moment to breath. Silently cursing under your breath. 

“I’ll have to talk to Skeld about the delay and our other shipments.” 

“Please, allow me to join the call, I will make sure that you are well taken care of.” 

“Yes of course, let me get a mobile out here.” 

* * *

You ended up sitting next to Soga on the edge of the pool, your coveralls rolled up your calves and your boots sitting to the side. He had to rehydrate his skin every few moments, regularly dipping himself into the water and then pulling himself back up to continue his part in the conversation. 

He translated for Osqan as well, and you found that you didn’t need to do anything besides give a brief introduction to your superior, everything else was negotiated by Soga (who was proving to have a downright silver tongue, errr-tongues). 

He got you two days of paid leave, insisting that you had done your job to its fullest capacity, and that there was no fault to be had. 

You ended up sitting beside him and Osqan in stunned silence, the phone silent between you after he hung up on you. 

“I really can’t thank you enough for that.” 

“Ah, your corporate office is what is known as a - and this is colloquial I believe - ‘pain in the ass’?” You burst into laughter, letting yourself go limp and falling back onto the deck of the carrier. 

“Yeah that would be just about right, though I would say pain in the neck to be polite.” 

He was smiling back at you. 

“No need to be polite, I hung up on them.” 

You burst into laughter again.

His hand, huge and webbed, but not unpleasant in texture or temperature, came to rest gently on the exposed skin of your calf. It was so large it probably could have wrapped all the way around your thigh at its thickest point. 

“I told you that I would make sure you were taken care of, no need to deal with them any longer than you have to.” 

“I appreciate that.” you hauled yourself up onto your elbows to look at him in your reclined position. “I just wish I could do something to thank you.” 

His thumb (well, thumb equivalent) drew a gentle circle on your skin. 

“No need for that.”

“Oh come on, there has to be something I can do? Maybe you’d like to come over for dinner or something?” 

His eyes glittered, interested. 

“I have been wanting to have bread for a while, we don’t often get it here, and we normally eat under the water as well, so you can understand how soggy something like that can get.” 

“Yeah, I can make bread, is there any type that you would prefer?” 

He tilted his head to the side.

“There are different types of bread?” 

“Yeah.”

* * *

When you walked onto the ship you admit that you were a bit star struck.

“So,” Orange leaned against the wall as you walked in, a bit of a trance laying over your head. “Who was that?”

“That was Soga and Osqan. Soga is the indigo one and Osqan has the shark features.” You sounded a little stunned even to your own ears. “Soga speaks over two hundred languages, did you know that was possible?” 

“No.” her tone was dry “I didn’t.” 

You sighed, still a little awestruck. 

“He said he wanted bread.” You let the silence linger for a few more moments and then whisper again. 

“Bread.” it strikes you all at once “OH SHIT HE WANTS BREAD.” It was like your body spurred itself into hyperdrive, you began rushing around the kitchen like a chicken without a head. 

“Good to have you back captain.” Orange let out a heavy sigh from the corner she stood in, shaking her head with a tiny smirk worming its way onto your face.

Bread normally took quite a lot of time to make, but you kept frozen dough and starters prepared at almost all times since Green told you he had a craving a month ago for something he termed ‘a breadgeoisie’ like bourgeois but with superior breads. 

You made buttermilk rolls, braided cinnamon loaves, French baguettes, sourdough, tortillas, pita, pumpernickel and more. Only when you were certain that you had covered a broad enough spectrum of bread and made appropriate dips and toppings did you begin to serve it to where Soga was waiting. 

He had called some friends from around the carrier, all of them large (which you were beginning to realize was the norm for the species) and all of them hungry. 

You asked them about dietary restrictions and they laughed at you, explaining that their stomachs did not work in the same way that yours did, and that they did not digest or get allergies in the same way that a human did. You shrugged and served them everything you had made.

In particular, buttermilk rolls with your homemade strawberry jelly seemed to be the most popular. They ran out so fast that you had to put a double-time on a second batch in the oven. The pumpernickel was mind boggling to them too, especially when you showed them just how many different toppings worked well with the flavorful, grain-filled bread. 

They eventually brought a type of snail to the party, when cracked open it produced a rich, creamy paste that was delicate and full of umami, almost like a fatty scallop. It went well on the French bread; a rather bazaar patte indeed.

Your crew milled around, holding trays with your homemade rolls and talking to some of the Druagantuians that had been called in from where they worked on the carrier. Yellow got into a conversation about the underwater pumps with Osqan using his universal translator, puzzling out the difficult engineering jargon. Green started talking literature with someone, you caught snippets of the conversation and were pleased to hear them exchanging descriptions of color. Blue seemed particularly popular, comparing workout routines and showing off their strength with a whole group of carrier workers that were impressed with their ability to lift the bales of cargo. 

You ended up being pulled out of your ‘server mode’ by Orange and Black, they forced you to give them instructions for serving the meal and then plopped you down in a deck chair that soon disappeared in favor of the damp pavement next to where Soga was draped into the water. 

You dangled your feet in the warm ocean, watched the sunset, and felt yourself become more grounded in reality with each passing moment. You had started coming back to yourself when Yellow had that conversation with you back in the cockpit, but you felt like you finally slid back into our body as the feeling of comfort and safety and the murmur of your team surrounded you. 

You hadn't realized how constrained you were in the halls of your ship until you were out of them.

By the time the bread was eaten, you had been explaining bread to the Druagantuians and chatting with Soga for almost three hours. The brilliant white sun had dipped under the horizon, and you were covered in breadcrumbs and the slight stickiness of your strawberry jam. 

“Well, I should go back to the ship now, it’s getting kind of late.” 

Soga grasped your elbow as you tried to stand. 

“Absolutely not, I will not allow you to stay in such accommodations. Please, now that the transport ship for the cargo is here you can travel safely to your suite.” 

You blinked. 

“Our suite?” 

“Yes, I arranged accommodation for you and your crew at the nearest resort.” his tail flicked in the water, soaking your already-damp pant legs. 

It was getting cold, as the sun set the water was becoming less refreshing and more chilling.

You shivered, just slightly, and only once. 

You would have thought ice was forming on your clothes by the way Soga reacted. 

“Was that a shiver? I hear that humans only shake like that when they are not able to produce enough heat?”

“Yes, it’s getting a little-”

“I will order extra blankets to your suite. Will you require a warm broth or perhaps a heated pad?” he reached out with his hand and pressed his fingertips onto your cheek. 

He retreated almost immediately. 

“I apologize. My body temperature runs colder than yours, contact must not be pleasant.” 

You chuckled a little at him. 

“It’s alright, that was just a momentary shiver, I’ll warm up as soon as I get dry.” 

“I will have staff place fresh clothes in your room.” 

“Oh, you don’t have to do that!” you tried to wave him off. “I have spare uniforms in the ship!” 

“Nonsense.” his voice got softer, lower. He leaned closer with those hypnotic, wine-dark eyes. “It would be a privilege if you would wear the clothes I provide.” 

“Actually I’m normally the captain's stylist.” 

Purple suddenly stood at your side, a tight smile on her face. 

“Would you like more banana bread?”

She offered Soga the tray and his eyes narrowed. 

“Though Red is a very talented chef, I unfortunately find myself full, if you will prepare for the vessel to your accommodations that would be very helpful.” He set his hand on your knee. “Perhaps I could keep Red company while you prepare.” 

You frowned. 

“Nah, I better pack myself before she manages to fit my whole wardrobe in the bags.” You slowly stand, giving Soga ample time to remove his hand. 

“Will I see you again before you go to sleep for tonight?”

“Unfortunately not, but I will be sure to check in tomorrow morning, perhaps you would be interested in a tour of the island I have arranged for you to stay in?”

“That sounds great! How early do you want to meet?”

“You should sleep in, you look like you could use it. I will join you for brunch when you wake.” He gave a soft, razor smile.” 

“I look forward to it! See you tomorrow!” You waved and finally retreated into the ship, shielded from the wind at last.

* * *

Almost as soon as you got into the ship you were slammed to the wall of the entryway. 

“What the hell!” You sputtered, glaring at the perpetrator. 

It was Blue, their hands on your wrists and an eyebrow raised. They spun you around and smashed your chest into the steel of the hallway. 

“Blue, let go of me!” 

“No.”

You growl in frustration, suddenly tipping over the edge of that emotion and into downright anger.

You twist yourself to face Blue over your shoulder, a snarl in place. 

“Peregrine!” 

You spat it out over your shoulder, making them flinch back from you. Their eyes were wide as you looked at them like a cornered animal, only just noticing that they weren’t alone. Behind them, the rest of the team stood, paralyzed. 

“No sex, no pinning, no more-” you cut yourself off, running a hand across your forehead. “I can’t right now.” 

You had been doing so good. You had just relaxed from your newest doubt of disassociation and now you had been blindsided and treated like an animal to reprimand. You hated that. It was what got you into that situation in the first place.

It was too much for you, the dreams, the anxiety, the increasing inability to tell when you were awake (probably directly related to how realistic your dreams were getting now that you thought about it). You needed space, time, and most importantly  _ rest _ . None of which you had been indulging in any significant amount. 

“Look, just-what the hell was that supposed to be about?” 

Now that you were thinking again, you were beginning to remember that you weren’t just a Captain, you were also Red, and Red was in a relationship that required communication that had been shattered. It was time to change that.

“What do you mean ‘what was that supposed to be about’?” Yellow hissed at you. “You won’t let us touch you, you won’t let us talk about why you won’t let us touch you, and now you’re out there-” He cut himself off “Fuck! I can’t even be mad at you for that because you're oblivious and blind!”

Mad at you for _ what _ ! 

You felt your brows bunch together, confusion tinting the anger you felt. You looked around at the crew, they all looked so small under the harsh lights, so fragile. 

“Look I-” you took a deep breath, forcing yourself to think logically. You needed to have a conversation, but so much had gone wrong in what felt like a very small amount of time, it felt like climbing a mountain of loose sand.

That wasn’t a captain issue. It was a Red issue; interpersonal and messy and something that may require a relaxed environment in which you could actually think without slipping back into the mindset of an authority figure. You needed to get out of the ship, to a place where you could relax and get into the issues that had risen.

“We need to talk about this, we should do it when we get ashore, we can sit down and we can sort this whole mess out.” You sighed. “I miss you guys. We need to get back to a point where we understand each other again.” You did miss them, you missed being able to touch them again. “I think my needs have changed since we entered this relationship, and I apologize that I failed to tell you what those new needs were, I promise that when we get on land it will be an open line of communication, I’ll answer all of your questions and you answer all of mine.”

Everyone looked at each other, nodding. 

Black smiled wanly, clearly not quite feeling it. 

“And once again you remind us why you are the captain.” 

You sighed, returning the reluctant smile. Things had gone really wrong, but you loved them and it was important for them to know that no matter what.

* * *

The suite was really nice. Worryingly nice. Large, plush beds surrounded by embroidered silken curtains, a full kitchen with white marble countertops, even a balcony with a view of the ocean and hammocks lined up between beautiful, twisting, bioluminescent trees that seemed to grow into the foundation of the building itself. 

What were you doing? Raiding the bar and juicing limes for a frankly ridiculous amount of margaritas. 

“Everyone drink at least one of these, we’re working this out and I think it will help.” You slammed half of yours back in a few gulps and took a deep breath of the smooth ocean air. “Alright, let’s start.” You took a few more bracing sips of your drink. “First of all, I want to know why you guys started treating me like I didn’t exist, a full explanation please.” 

The whole crew gathered around, sitting at the bar and taking their margaritas like shots (maybe you should have just stuck to shots if this was how the day was going to go). 

Yellow's hand rose into the air, a tiny tremor in it. 

“Look. it was my fucking fault to begin with.”

Orange interrupted him.

“No, we all agreed to it.” 

“But I suggested it, let me take responsibility for it.” 

She fell silent and let him talk. 

“Look I-” he ran a hand through his hair. “I really wanted you to apologize.” his margarita was already gone, and he did that thing where he crossed his arms, avoiding eye contact. “You ran over an entire planet, throwing yourself into dangerous situations one after the other and I couldn’t take it! You were hurting yourself, and seeing you go through that was hurting me too.” You reached out for him, but he didn’t take your hand.

“I got angry and bitter and I wanted so badly for you to just see that you were doing so much harm to yourself and to us, so I came up with this dumb Idea.” He was right, it had been a dumb idea. “I thought that if we ignored you, then you would realize how badly you fucked up. I thought that you would apologize when you realized what was happening! I didn’t think you would get pushed so hard you passed out in the middle of the day!” he sighed. “So yeah, it started with me.” 

You were reminded of how he looked his first time on the ship, small and almost gaunt. He had lost weight again. It had barely been a week that you didn’t cook for the crew, did such a small amount of time really take him back to that initial state? 

Your voice came out surprisingly soft.

“Thank you for telling me that.” you meant it. “I appreciate your honesty.” Maybe it was time for you to be honest too.

You reached out and pulled him into a one-armed hug, pressing a kiss to his hair. He huffed and threw both arms around your waist. 

“Well I wasn’t just going to ignore the problem, that’s a  _ you  _ thing.” 

A chuckle slipped out. He wasn’t wrong.

“Yellow, you may have started that, but everyone contributed to it, and I need to tell you how it’s been affecting me.” You poured yourself another drink. “I understand you started it to get me to apologize, and I really am sorry for doing something so reckless, but I think we all agree this went way too far.” 

You get a series of murmurs, acknowledgement from the crew. 

“When you-when you guys started ignoring me I started being unable to distinguish if I was in a nightmare or if I was awake.” 

Black reached out toward your hand cautiously, and for the first time in a long time you let him place his fingertips over the pulse point on your wrist. He moved slowly, carefully, afraid that you would break away at any second. 

“Is that why you told me I wasn’t real?” 

You nodded to him. 

“I tried to explain it before, but I don’t think I did a good job. I was really afraid that I would wake up and everything would just-” you winced “be bad again? I think I really started coming back to myself when Yellow told me that I was ‘protecting myself’.” 

You look toward Yellow. 

“That did actually happen right?” 

Yellow nodded, and Black tugged on your wrist to regain your attention.

“Captain, why did you doubt if that was real?” He looked so concerned that you couldn’t help trying to comfort him. You squeezed his hand between both of yours. It was cold, which meant he hadn’t been eating either, probably back to his weird, self-imposed liquid diet while you were out of commision.

“One of the reasons that I thought I was dreaming was because sometimes in my dreams, White takes your forms-”

“Who’s White?” Purple broke in, nursing her glass and looking at you with...it wasn’t quite pity, but you still hated it.

“White is the imposter, I um-” you couldn’t tell them about the asset files, it would be too much, too fast. “I started calling it that because it appears in the white space suit a lot.” Not entirely a lie, but not a truth either. 

Black tugged you away from your focus on other things. 

“Are you aware that you’re awake right now?” 

He was peering into your eyes, a little too close, and too analytical for comfort. 

“Black I don’t have a concussion.” You placed a hand on his chest and gently pushed him back into his seat. You found that you didn’t want to move your hand from the contact, so you didn’t. “I know that I have to be awake right now, all of my dreams take place on the ship.” 

You felt guilty for how much more relaxed you were, the ship was your home, where your team built their relationship. Yet, all those good memories were not enough to make you any less afraid of those hallways. 

“Captain.” you clung tighter to the collar of Blacks shirt as he started talking again, getting more concerned by the minute. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner, you should be on medication for this!” 

“I know.” You winced, pressing your thumb to the seam of his lips when he started to speak (probably to chastise you). “Black, I know, but you’ll probably put me on sleeping pills right?” 

He nodded against your hand, you found yourself distracted by the plush push of his lip against the pad of your finger. You really shouldn’t have been horny at that moment, but it had been a while, and now that you were sure you weren’t dreaming you were noticing that your crew had started looking downright delectable. 

“The sleeping pills just trap me in the nightmares. I can’t wake up from them as easily.” 

Blue stood from their chair.

“That’s okay! Meds aren't one size fits all!” They had a smile of pure relief on their face, so hopeful. “When I first got on anxiety meds, it took a few months to get it right. But it helped, and things got better!” 

You forgot sometimes that they were on meds for that, they always stayed so positive and cheerful, even when things got downright crushing. 

“Yeah.” you sighed and allowed yourself to relax. “I’ll get on meds.” 

A sigh of relief went through the room, and you allowed yourself to take Greens outstretched hand, getting reeled in so that he could press his head to your sternum. “But you guys have to be patient with me, none of this ignoring stuff, and the meds will probably mess with my sex drive.” 

Orange laughed from her seat, her gaze was so soft when she looked at you that you found it impossible to believe that you could have ever doubted that she loved you.

“Cap, we aren’t with you just for the sex. Take all the time you need, we aren’t going anywhere.”

From his place buried in your chest, Green mumbled, his hot breath comforting against your rib cage. 

“It’s good to have you back.” He murmured. “I missed you a lot.” 

You ran a hand through his long hair, it was down from it’s normal braid, silky and soft as it slid between your fingers. 

“Now that all the important stuff is out of the way-” Orange spoke up again, already pounding through her second margarita (just like you). “You are aware that the fish was flirting with you right? The ‘indigo’ one.”

You groaned. 

“He was not!” 

* * *

(Porn starts here, please skip this if the tags in the chapter summary are not your cup of tea.)

The sounds of the ocean, a fresh breeze, silk drapery fluttering around the bed. You woke up to the beautiful blue light of the Druagantuian moon streaming through the open doors to the balcony and the distinct feeling that someone was missing from the dogpile that was all around you. 

You shifted out from under the covers, careful to avoid the limbs that you were positively enveloped in. 

You poked your head around the corner and found that you were right, even asleep you were able to tell when someone was missing. 

It was Yellow, leaning on the balcony and playing with something in his hands. It made a smooth, metallic sound, ringing out through the crisp air coming off of the ocean. 

“Hey there.” 

He didn’t startle when he looked up at you. The moon caught the bags under his eyes and exaggerated the depth, it made him look almost ghostly, washed out under the blue light.

He leaned into the look, his torso bare and lean, pants laying low and revealing the sharp jut of his hips. For a moment you could picture him with a cigarette dangling between his lips, smoke acting as a halo as much as his mussed hair was. 

There was no cigarette, they had been outlawed by Black and he would come after you with a fire extinguisher as soon as one of you so much as looked at one (not that you even wanted to smoke in the first place) but the ambiance was still there. 

“You alright babe?” 

He sighed and leaned further against the railing. 

“No.” 

You slid up beside him and waited patiently for him to decide to start talking to you. Sometimes the best way to get someone to talk to you was to say nothing at all. 

He looked at you, uncertainty and guilt. Powerlessness. 

“I love you.” 

“I know that.” You gave him a small smile, the corner of your mouth twitching up as you took him in. “You feel guilty right?” 

“Yeah.” He flicked the thing in his hand again. It was a knife. 

It was almost elegant, the hilt a dark wood and the blade damascus, rippling with stars that were worked directly into the metal. He was sharpening it, even though it already seemed to be razor sharp it wasn’t good enough for him.

“Back on earth-” he swallowed heavily. “Back on our _ old _ earth, I was in this relationship. Every time that she got mad she would just cut me off and ignore me.” He sniffed and looked back out to the sea. “It sucked, but I would always apologize.”

“Hmmm.” how fucking dare she, you wanted to evicerate her and hang her with the coils of her own intestines. Her body could swing from a ceiling fan like that until the flies ate through her body and filled her with maggots. “That’s abusive Yellow.” 

“I fucking know that now.” His hands stilled on the knife. “I abused you, I made all the others do it  _ with me _ .” He finally looked back at you. “How could you forgive me for that?” 

There was a tear loose on his cheek, you swiped it away with your thumb and showed it to him. 

“Because you’ll never do it again.” 

“How can you trust me not to?” 

You brought your hand to his cheek, not saying anything, just running your fingers over his features. 

“Damnit!” he grabbed you by the hips and shoved you against the railing, caging you with his body so that there was nothing but a thin grate of metal keeping you from falling the thirty feet downward into the sea. “Why the fuck won’t you be mad at me! You should scream or  _ something _ !”

“Is that what your ex did too?” His eyes went wide. “I’m not her, and I trust you.” You cradled his jaw and brought him closer. “I’ll show you how much if you want.” 

You slammed your mouth into his before he could get away, not that he tried to. 

He immediately laced a hand in your hair and yanked you into the kiss harder, he lost himself in it, not noticing your hand on his wrist until you were wrenching it upwards. 

His lips were swollen, hair a mess and flush on his cheeks as he watched you with wide eyes. 

Under your throat, the cold touch of the knife's steel edge lingered, kept there by your own hand overlapping his on the handle. 

The moment lingered, your breath hot and heaving into the air between you. 

“You promise never to do it again? Fine. Carve it into my skin and remember it.” 

You let the knife drop from your grasp as he went to his knees, a needy sound leaving his mouth as his hands scrambled with the ties to your pants, you were no better, cursing softly as his damp breath brushed over where you were already rock hard in your underwear. 

You canted your hips toward his face, only stopping when he took the sharp point of the knife and drew it down the front of your pants and through your underwear. 

The knife was razor sharp and parted the fabric effortlessly, shredding it and leaving it to drop at your feet. 

The tip of the knife needled at your hip. 

“Take your shirt off.” 

When a man with a knife that close to your dick told you to take your shirt off you did exactly that. You pulled the fabric over your head and let it flutter to the ground, gripping at the thin edge of the railing as you waited for Yellow to draw the ice-cold edge over your skin.

Instead, you felt the rough, hot drag of his tongue over your length, a steady, wet pressure from the base to the tip. 

You groaned, eyes still locked to the glinting of the silver knife. 

He lowered it to your skin carefully, abandoning your dick completely to focus on his task. His free hand came to your opposite hip, spreading over the skin and pressing you back into the rail, the cold iron firm against your bare ass. 

Your cock twitched as he selected the skin above your right hip for his first cut, the knife so sharp that you only felt it’s cold touch, not even registering the pain of the gash until hot blood slowly seeped out, forming black, gemstone droplets along your skin in the moonlight. 

He shifted between your legs, pressing his entire forearm to your hip to keep you still as the knife tickled through the next few cuts, blood gradually gathering and dripping in rivulets down your leg. 

You trembled, alternating between starting at the intense look on his face and the pattern that was slowly forming on your skin. 

Pilots wings, he was marking you with pilots wings. 

A thick droplet of blood ran down your hip and curled to the interior of your thigh, he followed it with his eyes, and then looked at you. 

Without blinking, he brought his mouth to the interior of your leg, running his tongue across the fat drop and sucking it into his mouth. 

You moaned, still held captive by the blade and trembling with the warm shockwaves of pleasure that were beginning to emanate from the delicate tracing of your insignia. 

He let his mouth fall open in your gaze, blood-stained teeth and ruby lips glinting at you freely, a private showing for you to witness. 

His hands gripped your hips, tight even over the wound he had just inflicted. He spun you around, tilting your chest down over the railing until you were bent in half over it, completely exposed to him. 

“Shit.” he mumbled against your neck, the hand holding the knife snaking around and back into sight, it lingered for a moment over your collar bone, but then he thought differently, sweeping the palm of his free hand and the very tip of the knife down the ridges of your spine until you felt him fall to his knees behind you. He lay the knife on your lower back, balancing it carefully and then releasing it entirely. 

“Hold onto that for me.” 

Without giving you any time, he was on you, his tongue swirling around your entrance and sucking at the rim. 

You groaned, desperate to rock back into his face and completely unable to. You trembled with the effort it took to hold still, the knife teetering on your spine, just over where Yellow hands kept you spread open wide for him. 

Wet sounds rose from his greedy mouth, sucking lightly and loosening you until you were so soaked and spit-slick that he could stuff two fingers into you and scissor you open. 

“Thanks for keeping this nice and safe.” 

When he finally rose from his knees behind you, your breath was heaving and you were dripping blood and precome onto the balcony. 

He wasted no time in lining himself up, thrusting into you with one, swift motion and holding himself there, stock still and flush to your hips. 

You groaned, impatient as he finally picked up the knife, retracing the path up your spine until he found a spot on your shoulder blade that pleased him. 

He didn’t fuck you so much as he ground into you, agonizingly slow and deep, magma hot inside of you as you waited. 

He cut into you delicately, gently beginning to thrust as he made his first incision. It was maddening.

He would thrust a few times, brushing your prostate and making your knees weak, then he would still, continuing the pattern on your shoulder only to repeat the process. 

Whatever he was writing, it felt long, burning hot and slick as your blood wet the patch of skin he chose. 

You gasped as he made his last cut and sighed, kissing the carving he had just made. You heard something clatter to the ground, and then his hand was crushing a handful of your thigh, spreading your legs wider as he began to thrust wildly into your body. 

Your mouth fell open immediately, a borderline scream leaving you as he  _ finally  _ fucked you. 

Blood ran down your arm, pooling between your fingers as the physical exertion caused the cuts on your shoulder to bleed uncontrollably. You panted into the open air, bent over the expansive fall into the sea as Yellow pressed himself flat to your back and lapped at the overflowing puddle of blood that pooled in your spine. 

“I love you.” He held you tighter, pulling you back to meet his hips with fingers that dug into the new wound over your hip and sent a flood of pleasure and pain to your mind. “I love you.”

Something that was warm trickled down your spine from where he had buried his face. You had a feeling that it wasn’t blood. 

“Yellow-” You were cut off with a groan as he hit the perfect spot inside of you. “I love-I love you too.” You looked out over the ocean, viridian and vibrant. “Look Yellow.” you reached behind you and grabbed his hands off of your uninjured hip, intertwining your fingers on the railing and holding on for dear life. “The sun is rising.” 

The sky turned gold and hopeful as he finished inside of you, stroking you through your own climax as the new day dawned.

In that beautiful, early morning light, you bled. 


	25. Bloody Someday (Female Version)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disaster has struck, but it's on to the next planet whether or not you're ready for it.  
> TW: Bloodplay, knifeplay, unsafe sex. Chapter can be read with or without porn, I'll put a warning before the porn starts so you can skip it.

It was supposed to be a punishment, something to get the Captain to realize how badly she had messed up. It was supposed to get her to apologize. 

It was never supposed to _break_ her.

“What the fuck happened?” The crew stood around the captain's body in the med bay. Under all of the covers, Red looked positively diminutive. 

It was Purple that spoke, breaking the tense silence and sniffling into the sleeves of her casuals, she had started crying out of pure frustration almost immediately after she got the news that Red had passed out on the mats; even hours later, it hadn’t stopped. 

She had been the loudest voice against their planned ‘punishment’ for the captain, she felt the pure agony of not being able to comfort and reassure someone more potently than anyone else on the ship. 

Every time the captain tried to win her over with gifts, every time she tried to touch her, every time that crestfallen look struck her, Purple almost abandoned the plan entirely.

Now, as the crew looked at their Captain, they wished that they had let her. 

“I thought you said that this wouldn’t-” she broke herself off with a sound of pure agony. 

She had thought it wouldn’t hurt the Captain, just like they all had. They had all forgotten how good she was at hiding her own mental state, assumed that her stalwart presence meant that she was coping, and pushed to even more extreme measures to get her to realize just how badly she had messed up.

“It wasn’t supposed to.” Orange was quiet, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of herself. 

Black fiddled with one of the Captains hands.

“Cap passed out from stress.” For such a big man, he managed to look tiny as he sat at the bedside, obsessively checking the monitors and saline drip that ran into the crook of the captain's arm. “Stress.” a hysterical laugh bubbled out of his throat. “She thought I was _disgusted_ with her. I-we messed up.” 

“Messed up?” Yellow stood from his chair, agitated. “We more than messed up, we _fucked_ up. She could have passed out anywhere, we were lucky it was when she was laying down! And in case you guys haven’t noticed, we were hurting ourselves too! Tell me that treating her like that didn’t make you hate yourself.” 

Blue flinched, though they hadn’t been as harsh as some of the others, it was particularly hard for them to withdraw physical affection from someone. It was their love language. 

“Captain did look pretty sad about it.” they murmured, eyes glassy from where they were cast toward the ground. 

“Cap looked fucking devastated!” Yellow wasn’t one to mince words. “And it was our fucking fault in case you didn’t realize!”

“It was your idea!” Purple shouted from her spot at the bedside. 

“I fucking know that! And I’m taking responsibility, but we all did it and now we all have to FIX this!” 

The room went silent again. 

How could they fix something so disastrous?

* * *

It was becoming far too common of an occurrence for you to wake up with a needle in your arm and the sharp smell of disinfectant in the air. 

The room was empty when you woke this time, you had hoped that things might have gone back to normal, but the lack of warmth pressed around you told you that the hope might have been misplaced. 

You sighed and sat up. Frowning when the blankets proved to be strangely heavy. 

You peeled back the comforter and a soft grin touched your lips when you realized that someone had placed a weighted blanket over your body. 

They were caring, even though you had fucked up so badly. 

“Captain?” You look up slowly, petrified to find Black standing in the doorway to the medbay. 

You knew you looked like a deer in the headlights, the blood draining from your face as you saw him walk into the room. He had a cup of noodles and a glass of milk in his hands. 

“Oh Cap.” He put the food down and was across the room before you had time to process the motion. 

He swung himself onto the bed with you in one, clean motion, straddling your hips and running his hands up your neck to cup your face. 

“I’m so sorry.” 

He crushed his lips to yours like he was a drowning man and you were air. 

“I didn’t notice what it was doing to you. I got so caught up and so mad and just-” He couldn’t keep his hands off of you. His fingers were running over your cheekbones, tucking hair behind your ears, stroking at the muscles running down your neck. “Captain I am so sorry.” 

He showered kisses over your face, unwilling to let you go for even a moment. Your hands hesitantly came up to rest on his hips. His eyes looked so big, so sad and wide. You wished that you knew what was happening, but your head still felt floating in the clouds and you couldn’t stop thinking about the last time that he had looked at you. 

_Disgust._

You squeezed his hips, your hands digging into the texture of his coveralls. He felt real enough, but some of your dreams had gotten pretty good at copying your waking hours. 

“Captain, are you with me?” He lifted your chin back up, an unfathomably fond smile in place as he looked at you. “Hey.” 

His voice was soft, and his hands warm and huge against your jaw. 

You brought your hand up to his wrist and tugged it away from your face. 

“Black?” You ran a hand over the back of his hand, feeling the ridges of his knuckles. 

“Yeah, it’s me.” 

“You’re not real.” 

His hands dropped, and you saw a faint tremble in his bottom lip.

“What?” his voice came out broken, but you just shook your head and laid back down, turning under his body so that you could nestle back under the layers of blankets. 

“Captain?” His voice was choked, high. You pulled the blankets over your head and waited to wake up. 

* * *

It felt too good to be true, since you returned from Argoro, everything had felt like a nightmare, and to suddenly experience such a large change in your team's attitude toward you made you (for lack of a better term) cautious to let them closer to you. 

You kept thinking back to some of the wonton dreams you had after Argoro. Sweet, beautiful dreams that only made it more painful to wake up and realized that they weren’t the truth. 

It certainly didn’t help that your dreams were so clear and vivid that they occasionally overlapped directly into reality. The space between your sleeping and waking hours had gotten significantly slimmer and a lot fuzzier since the nightmares began and the emotions from them slipped right through.

It was hard to tell when you were awake and asleep anymore, even more so since your crew had gotten distant. 

Everything just turned into a consistent, turbulent ring of emotions that spiraled slowly tighter and tighter until you were wrapped in it. 

“Captain?” Your personal hell included your crew and the constant sadness and guilt that flowed out of them. You wondered when the nightmare would decide it had lulled you into enough of a sense of security and turn them against you again.

These days you spent so much time working through your duties and trying to figure out if you could trust your own eyes that you had stopped pretty much anything else. Time with the crew, cooking, working out, all of it went away while you lived through the strange, fuzzy state that was now all consuming. 

You turn to where Yellow was in the doorway.

“Hhhhmmm?” You had decided that engaging with your own mind as little as possible was the best way to get through this unscathed. 

“I just wanted to let you know that the electrical work on that new transmitter is done.” 

“Mmm.” 

You checked off that job on the list of his to-dos, practically on autopilot. 

“Captain, Red, look at me for a second.” You did, because he sounded so calm, and that was something you were pretty sure even a dream state would have trouble making up. 

He took your face between his palms and forced you to look at him. 

“I know that you’re in there, rationalizing this behavior of yours, and I get it, I do. You’re just-” He paused, looking at you with a touch too much longing. “-Protecting yourself. But you have to come back. Maybe you can’t do that right now, but you have to come back.” 

You felt _something._ You weren’t sure what it was, but it was the strongest positive emotion that you had felt since your crew started to draw away. 

Was it desire? Thankfulness? Whatever it was, it was faint and swam at the back of your mind. 

“I don’t- I don’t get it?” You were right in front of him, didn’t that make you ‘there’? 

“I know you don’t, and that’s okay, just keep in mind that you need to come back.” 

You watched him as he left, that unidentified feeling tugging like a string toward him. It felt like someone you were only loosely attached to really wanted to follow him. 

* * *

_You were in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around your waist when you felt someone watching you. You had waited until the crew was done with their showers before you entered, doing your best to avoid looking at them._

_Even though you were dreaming (because you had to be dreaming). You still felt a trickle of fear as one of the shower curtains drew back._

_The imposter had gotten better at it’s White form. It still had eyes that looked wrong, but there was more life to them now, borderline emotion as it looked at you. It smiles as it approaches, vicious and mean._

_“All mine now captain, aren’t you?” It stands behind you and rests its paper-pale hands on your shoulders. You just shook your head._

_You went back to brushing your teeth._

_It didn’t seem to like that._

_“Red? This is normally the part where you start screaming.”_

_You spat your toothpaste out and brushed it’s hands off of your shoulders, making a bee-line for the stack of clothes you left neatly folded one one of the benches by the lockers._

_“Go fuck yourself.”_

_Normally, when you had similar dreams, that was about the time that the creature decided that it would kill you; but this time it flinched back, looking almost confused before its expression morphed into a snarl._

_“What? I didn’t break you that much did I? Was my visit on Tuesday too much for you?”_

_You scoffed._

_“I don’t remember a god-damned thing about Tuesday.” You yanked your pants on, turning your back to it completely in the process. “Now I am going to finish dressing, and when I turn around you will be gone.”_

_It let out something that could have been a laugh, gargling and raspy._

_“And why would I do that?”_

_You yanked on your tank top._

_“Because you are not real, you are a dream or a hallucination.”_

_It’s laughter cut off in a shocked, choking sound._

_“And even if you were real-” you yanked on a sock with more force than necessary. “You haven’t killed me yet, which means you either can’t, or won’t, so when I turn around, you will be gone.”_

_There was a moment of silence._

_“You-you-what happened to you?”_

_You ignored it’s question._

_“Three, two-” you pulled on your last sock “-one.”_

_Sure enough, you turned around and faced an empty bathroom._

* * *

“Ummm, Captain?” you glanced up at the chair beside you. 

“Yes Green?” 

“It’s almost clock-out time.” 

You hummed, still checking the orbital position for tomorrow's descent onto Druagantu, a planet almost entirely covered in water.

“I can see that.” 

“Do you-” even with your eyes locked onto the screen, you could tell he was flushed. “Do you want to meet me after dinner?” 

“Eh?” You chewed on the end of your pencil. “What for?” 

“I-well I was hoping-” You glanced up at him; sure enough, his face was rosey. “I mean I was wondering if you would like to-” he hesitated, blush intensifying. “Would you like to join me? In the showers tonight?” 

Your jaw fell open a little at his request. Green _never_ initiated sex. 

“Look Green, I really don’t think that’s the best idea right now-” 

“Why not?” his hand came to rest on the cuff of your uniform, his fingers slipping inward and caressing your wrist. He looked desperate, bordering on panicking. “Do you not love-” 

You slapped a hand across his mouth, voice dark. 

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” 

You didn’t know what you looked like as you growled at him, but it must have been something downright scary. Above your hand, his eyes went wide. He nodded minutely against the pressure of your palm, afraid to move too much. 

You let out a long sigh, slumping forward a bit and lessening the force of your fingers until they were just barely sitting over his lips. 

How did you explain to him that you were afraid this was a dream? That the second you engaged in too much physical contact with your crew that they would dissolve into the imposter, teeth bared as it looked at you and stoked the increasingly familiar feeling of horror and guilt that came with touching that creature, that _monster,_ and mistaking it for someone that you were supposed to love?

Instead of saying any of that, you leaned forward and pressed a brief kiss to the back of the hand that was clasped over his mouth. 

“Look, it’s dinner soon right? It’s Purples day?.” He nodded again, eyes still wide, but holding less panic, instead there was a fragile softness, almost a hope. 

“I’ll make Injera and Tibs then, do you think she’d like orange granita or mint-blackberry cream puffs for dessert.” 

You let go of his mouth, and were rewarded with a faint smile. 

“I think the granita.” 

That night, you cooked for your team. It was the first time in over a week. 

* * *

Druagantu was a blue planet, over ninety percent ocean with only the occasional, small island to break the endless sea. 

As such, it’s residents were well adapted for life in the water. 

They were mermaids. 

“Ah, you must be Captain Red.” You had landed on a Skeld ocean liner, and had begun unloading the cargo while you waited for your contact to arrive and offer you further instructions. “Am I pronouncing that correctly? Red as in the color.” 

The voice talking was raspy, obviously unused to your language. Most creatures were incapable of human speech, even the few that were often used translators. 

You were surprised and impressed that someone still bothered to learn other languages. 

“Yes, that’s perfect!” You step toward where your contact was waiting for you, propped on the edge of a pool of water. 

The craft that you had landed on was actually designed with a series of shafts that went from the deck straight through the hundreds of layers of the ship. The natives of Druagantu could swim through the shafts and through shallow canals to access the storage units and any ships that landed on the surface of the carrier. 

“You must be Soga, I hope I'm pronouncing that right as well!” You let out a soft chuckle as you rush over and take Soga in. “May I ask for your pronouns?” 

“Ah-” he thought about it. “I suppose that the closest identifier in this language is he/they. May I ask the same of you?” 

“She/Her please.” 

Soga would have been over seven feet tall if his torso was on a human. As it was, you could see his tail drooping into the water, a glimmering expanse of indigo scales that must have been well over ten feet long. 

They smiled, eyes black as night and teeth sharp, as close as you were, you saw that there was more than one layer of teeth. They had deep, tan skin, their upper body rippling with muscle and scattered with glinting indigo scales up until they faded into his hair; a gray so pale it was almost white cut to reveal intricate swirls and ripples. 

Those black eyes flickered over your entire body, taking in everything from your work boots to the hair you hadn’t cut in months. 

“Well Captain, it is my pleasure to meet you.” His voice got lower, raspier. 

“No, the pleasure is all mine, on behalf of my crew I would like to thank you for welcoming us.” 

He tilted his head, a forked tongue flicking out of his mouth for a moment so brief you thought you had imagined it. 

“Nonsense,” it was gone before you had the chance to fully register it. “It’s always a pleasure to come to the docks, it gives me a change to practice my language skills.” 

“Really, how many do you speak?” You were trying to make polite conversation while Blue finished unloading the hold, but you were taken aback when Soga smiled casually and replied.

“Two hundred and twenty six, thirty nine if you count my home dialects.” 

Your mouth dropped open. 

“You-you’re pulling my leg?” 

He grinned at you.

“That would be a human idiom correct? A way of asking if I jest? I assure you I do not.” 

“Yeah, that’s right it is an idiom. How did you learn so many languages?” You began pulling up the paperwork for the cargo. 

“Well this is a port, I grew up around here, and I also used to work at the healing vats before I got this job. They are very popular tourist locations.”

“The healing vats?” you handed the tablet with the paperwork over to him. 

“Yes, springs on the islands are quite popular, we enrich the water with herbs for customers that stay at the resorts. Actually-” he scrawled something on the report “that is what your delivery is for, we will be transporting them to the resorts from here.” He hauled himself out of the water, perching on the lip of the pool. Water sloshed out and soaked your boots with his motions.

“Oh! I apologize!” 

You laughed lightly.

“It’s no trouble, they’ll dry.” You step forward and reach for the tablet, but before you can take it into your hand the water erupts upwards, a Druagantuian just as large as Soga surfacing right beside you.

Water washed over you in a wave, soaking your coveralls and underclothes. You heard a deep, rhythmic rumble as you wiped water out of your eyes. 

The ocean was a lot less salty than those on earth, it didn’t even sting your eyes as it dripped off of your lashes. 

When you finally came around, you were met with a Druagantuian. They had white hair and eyes so light they were almost colorless. Their bottom half could only be described as an enormous shark, fifteen-odd feet of pure muscle whipping the water into a frenzy. 

The deep rumble you heard belonged to vocalizations coming from their chest, Soga returned a similar sound, his own tail stirring the water, agitated. He glanced at you, then did a double take as he realized that you were dripping wet. He pointed between you and the second Druagantuian for a moment, speaking rapidly. 

The Druagantuian that had soaked you turned to you, hauling themselves out of the water on ridiculously muscular arms so that they could perch on the edge of the shaft and bow their head to you. 

“Sorry.” they said, clearly not as experienced with English as their counterpart. 

“It’s alright, it’s nothing that won’t dry before we have to leave.'' The air on Druagantu was warm, and though the water was cold it wasn’t unpleasant. 

Soga glanced at the other Druagantuian. 

“About your departure-” he gestured to the other being, their head still bowed in your direction and spoke to him softly in their own language, once he was done, they seemed to perk up, lifting their head from it’s inclined position. “This is Osqan, he is one of the best undersea engineers that we have.” 

Osqan seemed to perk up at his name. 

“He just informed me that there was an incident with the fuel that was supposed to go to your ship, a few days ago we had an emergency at sea and had to airlift an exploration vessel onto dry land, the fuel that was supposed to go to your ship was used and because of the circumstances, there has not yet been a chance for the replenishment shipment. The closest supply facility is a two day trip.” 

You took a moment to breath. Silently cursing under your breath. 

“I’ll have to talk to Skeld about the delay and our other shipments.” 

“Please, allow me to join the call, I will make sure that you are well taken care of.” 

“Yes of course, let me get a mobile out here.” 

* * *

You ended up sitting next to Soga on the edge of the pool, your coveralls rolled up your calves and your boots sitting to the side. He had to rehydrate his skin every few moments, regularly dipping himself into the water and then pulling himself back up to continue his part in the conversation. 

He translated for Osqan as well, and you found that you didn’t need to do anything besides give a brief introduction to your superior, everything else was negotiated by Soga (who was proving to have a downright silver tongue, errr-tongues). 

He got you two days of paid leave, insisting that you had done your job to its fullest capacity, and that there was no fault to be had. 

You ended up sitting beside him and Osqan in stunned silence, the phone silent between you after he hung up on you. 

“I really can’t thank you enough for that.” 

“Ah, your corporate office is what is known as a - and this is colloquial I believe - ‘pain in the ass’?” You burst into laughter, letting yourself go limp and falling back onto the deck of the carrier. 

“Yeah that would be just about right, though I would say pain in the neck to be polite.” 

He was smiling back at you. 

“No need to be polite, I hung up on them.” 

You burst into laughter again.

His hand, huge and webbed, but not unpleasant in texture or temperature, came to rest gently on the exposed skin of your calf. It was so large it probably could have wrapped all the way around your thigh at its thickest point. 

“I told you that I would make sure you were taken care of, no need to deal with them any longer than you have to.” 

“I appreciate that.” you hauled yourself up onto your elbows to look at him in your reclined position. “I just wish I could do something to thank you.” 

His thumb (well, thumb equivalent) drew a gentle circle on your skin. 

“No need for that.”

“Oh come on, there has to be something I can do? Maybe you’d like to come over for dinner or something?” 

His eyes glittered, interested. 

“I have been wanting to have bread for a while, we don’t often get it here, and we normally eat under the water as well, so you can understand how soggy something like that can get.” 

“Yeah, I can make bread, is there any type that you would prefer?” 

He tilted his head to the side.

“There are different types of bread?” 

“Yeah.”

* * *

When you walked onto the ship you admit that you were a bit star struck.

“So,” Orange leaned against the wall as you walked in, a bit of a trance laying over your head. “Who was that?”

“That was Soga and Osqan. Soga is the indigo one and Osqan has the shark features.” You sounded a little stunned even to your own ears. “Soga speaks over two hundred languages, did you know that was possible?” 

“No.” her tone was dry “I didn’t.” 

You sighed, still a little awestruck. 

“He said he wanted bread.” You let the silence linger for a few more moments and then whisper again. 

“Bread.” it strikes you all at once “OH SHIT HE WANTS BREAD.” It was like your body spurred itself into hyperdrive, you began rushing around the kitchen like a chicken without a head. 

“Good to have you back captain.” Orange let out a heavy sigh from the corner she stood in, shaking her head with a tiny smirk worming its way onto your face.

Bread normally took quite a lot of time to make, but you kept frozen dough and starters prepared at almost all times since Green told you he had a craving a month ago for something he termed ‘a breadgeoisie’ like bourgeois but with superior breads. 

You made buttermilk rolls, braided cinnamon loaves, French baguettes, sourdough, tortillas, pita, pumpernickel and more. Only when you were certain that you had covered a broad enough spectrum of bread and made appropriate dips and toppings did you begin to serve it to where Soga was waiting. 

He had called some friends from around the carrier, all of them large (which you were beginning to realize was the norm for the species) and all of them hungry. 

You asked them about dietary restrictions and they laughed at you, explaining that their stomachs did not work in the same way that yours did, and that they did not digest or get allergies in the same way that a human did. You shrugged and served them everything you had made.

In particular, buttermilk rolls with your homemade strawberry jelly seemed to be the most popular. They ran out so fast that you had to put a double-time on a second batch in the oven. The pumpernickel was mind boggling to them too, especially when you showed them just how many different toppings worked well with the flavorful, grain-filled bread. 

They eventually brought a type of snail to the party, when cracked open it produced a rich, creamy paste that was delicate and full of umami, almost like a fatty scallop. It went well on the French bread; a rather bazaar patte indeed.

Your crew milled around, holding trays with your homemade rolls and talking to some of the Druagantuians that had been called in from where they worked on the carrier. Yellow got into a conversation about the underwater pumps with Osqan using his universal translator, puzzling out the difficult engineering jargon. Green started talking literature with someone, you caught snippets of the conversation and were pleased to hear them exchanging descriptions of color. Blue seemed particularly popular, comparing workout routines and showing off their strength with a whole group of carrier workers that were impressed with their ability to lift the bales of cargo. 

You ended up being pulled out of your ‘server mode’ by Orange and Black, they forced you to give them instructions for serving the meal and then plopped you down in a deck chair that soon disappeared in favor of the damp pavement next to where Soga was draped into the water. 

You dangled your feet in the warm ocean, watched the sunset, and felt yourself become more grounded in reality with each passing moment. You had started coming back to yourself when Yellow had that conversation with you back in the cockpit, but you felt like you finally slid back into our body as the feeling of comfort and safety and the murmur of your team surrounded you. 

You hadn't realized how constrained you were in the halls of your ship until you were out of them.

By the time the bread was eaten, you had been explaining bread to the Druagantuians and chatting with Soga for almost three hours. The brilliant white sun had dipped under the horizon, and you were covered in breadcrumbs and the slight stickiness of your strawberry jam. 

“Well, I should go back to the ship now, it’s getting kind of late.” 

Soga grasped your elbow as you tried to stand. 

“Absolutely not, I will not allow you to stay in such accommodations. Please, now that the transport ship for the cargo is here you can travel safely to your suite.” 

You blinked. 

“Our suite?” 

“Yes, I arranged accommodation for you and your crew at the nearest resort.” his tail flicked in the water, soaking your already-damp pant legs. 

It was getting cold, as the sun set the water was becoming less refreshing and more chilling.

You shivered, just slightly, and only once. 

You would have thought ice was forming on your clothes by the way Soga reacted. 

“Was that a shiver? I hear that humans only shake like that when they are not able to produce enough heat?”

“Yes, it’s getting a little-”

“I will order extra blankets to your suite. Will you require a warm broth or perhaps a heated pad?” he reached out with his hand and pressed his fingertips onto your cheek. 

He retreated almost immediately. 

“I apologize. My body temperature runs colder than yours, contact must not be pleasant.” 

You chuckled a little at him. 

“It’s alright, that was just a momentary shiver, I’ll warm up as soon as I get dry.” 

“I will have staff place fresh clothes in your room.” 

“Oh, you don’t have to do that!” you tried to wave him off. “I have spare uniforms in the ship!” 

“Nonsense.” his voice got softer, lower. He leaned closer with those hypnotic, wine-dark eyes. “It would be a privilege if you would wear the clothes I provide.” 

“Actually I’m normally the captain's stylist.” 

Purple suddenly stood at your side, a tight smile on her face. 

“Would you like more banana bread?”

She offered Soga the tray and his eyes narrowed. 

“Though Red is a very talented chef, I unfortunately find myself full, if you will prepare for the vessel to your accommodations that would be very helpful.” He set his hand on your knee. “Perhaps I could keep Red company while you prepare.” 

You frowned. 

“Nah, I better pack myself before she manages to fit my whole wardrobe in the bags.” You slowly stand, giving Soga ample time to remove his hand. 

“Will I see you again before you go to sleep for tonight?”

“Unfortunately not, but I will be sure to check in tomorrow morning, perhaps you would be interested in a tour of the island I have arranged for you to stay in?”

“That sounds great! How early do you want to meet?”

“You should sleep in, you look like you could use it. I will join you for brunch when you wake.” He gave a soft, razor smile.” 

“I look forward to it! See you tomorrow!” You waved and finally retreated into the ship, shielded from the wind at last.

* * *

Almost as soon as you got into the ship you were slammed to the wall of the entryway. 

“What the hell!” You sputtered, glaring at the perpetrator. 

It was Blue, their hands on your wrists and an eyebrow raised. They spun you around and smashed your chest into the steel of the hallway. 

“Blue, let go of me!” 

“No.”

You growl in frustration, suddenly tipping over the edge of that emotion and into downright anger.

You twist yourself to face Blue over your shoulder, a snarl in place. 

“Peregrine!” 

You spat it out over your shoulder, making them flinch back from you. Their eyes were wide as you looked at them like a cornered animal, only just noticing that they weren’t alone. Behind them, the rest of the team stood, paralyzed. 

“No sex, no pinning, no more-” you cut yourself off, running a hand across your forehead. “I can’t right now.” 

You had been doing so good. You had just relaxed from your newest doubt of disassociation and now you had been blindsided and treated like an animal to reprimand. You hated that. It was what got you into that situation in the first place.

It was too much for you, the dreams, the anxiety, the increasing inability to tell when you were awake (probably directly related to how realistic your dreams were getting now that you thought about it). You needed space, time, and most importantly _rest_. None of which you had been indulging in any significant amount. 

“Look, just-what the hell was that supposed to be about?” 

Now that you were thinking again, you were beginning to remember that you weren’t just a Captain, you were also Red, and Red was in a relationship that required communication that had been shattered. It was time to change that.

“What do you mean ‘what was that supposed to be about’?” Yellow hissed at you. “You won’t let us touch you, you won’t let us talk about why you won’t let us touch you, and now you’re out there-” He cut himself off “Fuck! I can’t even be mad at you for that because you're oblivious and blind!”

Mad at you for _what_! 

You felt your brows bunch together, confusion tinting the anger you felt. You looked around at the crew, they all looked so small under the harsh lights, so fragile. 

“Look I-” you took a deep breath, forcing yourself to think logically. You needed to have a conversation, but so much had gone wrong in what felt like a very small amount of time, it felt like climbing a mountain of loose sand.

That wasn’t a captain issue. It was a Red issue; interpersonal and messy and something that may require a relaxed environment in which you could actually think without slipping back into the mindset of an authority figure. You needed to get out of the ship, to a place where you could relax and get into the issues that had risen.

“We need to talk about this, we should do it when we get ashore, we can sit down and we can sort this whole mess out.” You sighed. “I miss you guys. We need to get back to a point where we understand each other again.” You did miss them, you missed being able to touch them again. “I think my needs have changed since we entered this relationship, and I apologize that I failed to tell you what those new needs were, I promise that when we get on land it will be an open line of communication, I’ll answer all of your questions and you answer all of mine.”

Everyone looked at each other, nodding. 

Black smiled wanly, clearly not quite feeling it. 

“And once again you remind us why you are the captain.” 

You sighed, returning the reluctant smile. Things had gone really wrong, but you loved them and it was important for them to know that no matter what.

* * *

The suite was really nice. Worryingly nice. Large, plush beds surrounded by embroidered silken curtains, a full kitchen with white marble countertops, even a balcony with a view of the ocean and hammocks lined up between beautiful, twisting, bioluminescent trees that seemed to grow into the foundation of the building itself. 

What were you doing? Raiding the bar and juicing limes for a frankly ridiculous amount of margaritas. 

“Everyone drink at least one of these, we’re working this out and I think it will help.” You slammed half of yours back in a few gulps and took a deep breath of the smooth ocean air. “Alright, let’s start.” You took a few more bracing sips of your drink. “First of all, I want to know why you guys started treating me like I didn’t exist, a full explanation please.” 

The whole crew gathered around, sitting at the bar and taking their margaritas like shots (maybe you should have just stuck to shots if this was how the day was going to go). 

Yellow's hand rose into the air, a tiny tremor in it. 

“Look. it was my fucking fault to begin with.”

Orange interrupted him.

“No, we all agreed to it.” 

“But I suggested it, let me take responsibility for it.” 

She fell silent and let him talk. 

“Look I-” he ran a hand through his hair. “I really wanted you to apologize.” his margarita was already gone, and he did that thing where he crossed his arms, avoiding eye contact. “You ran over an entire planet, throwing yourself into dangerous situations one after the other and I couldn’t take it! You were hurting yourself, and seeing you go through that was hurting me too.” You reached out for him, but he didn’t take your hand.

“I got angry and bitter and I wanted so badly for you to just see that you were doing so much harm to yourself and to us, so I came up with this dumb Idea.” He was right, it had been a dumb idea. “I thought that if we ignored you, then you would realize how badly you fucked up. I thought that you would apologize when you realized what was happening! I didn’t think you would get pushed so hard you passed out in the middle of the day!” he sighed. “So yeah, it started with me.” 

You were reminded of how he looked his first time on the ship, small and almost gaunt. He had lost weight again. It had barely been a week that you didn’t cook for the crew, did such a small amount of time really take him back to that initial state? 

Your voice came out surprisingly soft.

“Thank you for telling me that.” you meant it. “I appreciate your honesty.” Maybe it was time for you to be honest too.

You reached out and pulled him into a one-armed hug, pressing a kiss to his hair. He huffed and threw both arms around your waist. 

“Well I wasn’t just going to ignore the problem, that’s a _you_ thing.” 

A chuckle slipped out. He wasn’t wrong.

“Yellow, you may have started that, but everyone contributed to it, and I need to tell you how it’s been affecting me.” You poured yourself another drink. “I understand you started it to get me to apologize, and I really am sorry for doing something so reckless, but I think we all agree this went way too far.” 

You get a series of murmurs, acknowledgement from the crew. 

“When you-when you guys started ignoring me I started being unable to distinguish if I was in a nightmare or if I was awake.” 

Black reached out toward your hand cautiously, and for the first time in a long time you let him place his fingertips over the pulse point on your wrist. He moved slowly, carefully, afraid that you would break away at any second. 

“Is that why you told me I wasn’t real?” 

You nodded to him. 

“I tried to explain it before, but I don’t think I did a good job. I was really afraid that I would wake up and everything would just-” you winced “be bad again? I think I really started coming back to myself when Yellow told me that I was ‘protecting myself’.” 

You look toward Yellow. 

“That did actually happen right?” 

Yellow nodded, and Black tugged on your wrist to regain your attention.

“Captain, why did you doubt if that was real?” He looked so concerned that you couldn’t help trying to comfort him. You squeezed his hand between both of yours. It was cold, which meant he hadn’t been eating either, probably back to his weird, self-imposed liquid diet while you were out of commision.

“One of the reasons that I thought I was dreaming was because sometimes in my dreams, White takes your forms-”

“Who’s White?” Purple broke in, nursing her glass and looking at you with...it wasn’t quite pity, but you still hated it.

“White is the imposter, I um-” you couldn’t tell them about the asset files, it would be too much, too fast. “I started calling it that because it appears in the white space suit a lot.” Not entirely a lie, but not a truth either. 

Black tugged you away from your focus on other things. 

“Are you aware that you’re awake right now?” 

He was peering into your eyes, a little too close, and too analytical for comfort. 

“Black I don’t have a concussion.” You placed a hand on his chest and gently pushed him back into his seat. You found that you didn’t want to move your hand from the contact, so you didn’t. “I know that I have to be awake right now, all of my dreams take place on the ship.” 

You felt guilty for how much more relaxed you were, the ship was your home, where your team built their relationship. Yet, all those good memories were not enough to make you any less afraid of those hallways. 

“Captain.” you clung tighter to the collar of Blacks shirt as he started talking again, getting more concerned by the minute. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner, you should be on medication for this!” 

“I know.” You winced, pressing your thumb to the seam of his lips when he started to speak (probably to chastise you). “Black, I know, but you’ll probably put me on sleeping pills right?” 

He nodded against your hand, you found yourself distracted by the plush push of his lip against the pad of your finger. You really shouldn’t have been horny at that moment, but it had been a while, and now that you were sure you weren’t dreaming you were noticing that your crew had started looking downright delectable. 

“The sleeping pills just trap me in the nightmares. I can’t wake up from them as easily.” 

Blue stood from their chair.

“That’s okay! Meds aren't one size fits all!” They had a smile of pure relief on their face, so hopeful. “When I first got on anxiety meds, it took a few months to get it right. But it helped, and things got better!” 

You forgot sometimes that they were on meds for that, they always stayed so positive and cheerful, even when things got downright crushing. 

“Yeah.” you sighed and allowed yourself to relax. “I’ll get on meds.” 

A sigh of relief went through the room, and you allowed yourself to take Greens outstretched hand, getting reeled in so that he could press his head to your sternum. “But you guys have to be patient with me, none of this ignoring stuff, and the meds will probably mess with my sex drive.” 

Orange laughed from her seat, her gaze was so soft when she looked at you that you found it impossible to believe that you could have ever doubted that she loved you.

“Cap, we aren’t with you just for the sex. Take all the time you need, we aren’t going anywhere.”

From his place buried in your chest, Green mumbled, his hot breath comforting against your rib cage. 

“It’s good to have you back.” He murmured. “I missed you a lot.” 

You ran a hand through his long hair, it was down from it’s normal braid, silky and soft as it slid between your fingers. 

“Now that all the important stuff is out of the way-” Orange spoke up again, already pounding through her second margarita (just like you). “You are aware that the fish was flirting with you right? The ‘indigo’ one.”

You groaned. 

“He was not!” 

* * *

(The porn starts here, please skip over this if the tags in the chapter summary will be problematic in any way)

The sounds of the ocean, a fresh breeze, silk drapery fluttering around the bed. You woke up to the beautiful blue light of the Druagantuian moon streaming through the open doors to the balcony and the distinct feeling that someone was missing from the dogpile that was all around you. 

You shifted out from under the covers, careful to avoid the limbs that you were positively enveloped in. 

You poked your head around the corner and found that you were right, even asleep you were able to tell when someone was missing. 

It was Yellow, leaning on the balcony and playing with something in his hands. It made a smooth, metallic sound, ringing out through the crisp air coming off of the ocean. 

“Hey there.” 

He didn’t startle when he looked up at you. The moon caught the bags under his eyes and exaggerated the depth, it made him look almost ghostly, washed out under the blue light.

He leaned into the look, his torso bare and lean, pants laying low and revealing the sharp jut of his hips. For a moment you could picture him with a cigarette dangling between his lips, smoke acting as a halo as much as his mussed hair was. 

There was no cigarette, they had been outlawed by Black and he would come after you with a fire extinguisher as soon as one of you so much as looked at one (not that you even wanted to smoke in the first place) but the ambiance was still there. 

“You alright babe?” 

He sighed and leaned further against the railing. 

“No.” 

You slid up beside him and waited patiently for him to decide to start talking to you. Sometimes the best way to get someone to talk to you was to say nothing at all. 

He looked at you, uncertainty and guilt. Powerlessness. 

“I love you.” 

“I know that.” You gave him a small smile, the corner of your mouth twitching up as you took him in. “You feel guilty right?” 

“Yeah.” He flicked the thing in his hand again. It was a knife. 

It was almost elegant, the hilt a dark wood and the blade damascus, rippling with stars that were worked directly into the metal. He was sharpening it, even though it already seemed to be razor sharp it wasn’t good enough for him.

“Back on earth-” he swallowed heavily. “Back on our _old_ earth, I was in this relationship. Every time that she got mad she would just cut me off and ignore me.” He sniffed and looked back out to the sea. “It sucked, but I would always apologize.”

“Hmmm.” how fucking dare she, you wanted to evicerate her and hang her with the coils of her own intestines. Her body could swing from a ceiling fan like that until the flies ate through her body and filled her with maggots. “That’s abusive Yellow.” 

“I fucking know that now.” His hands stilled on the knife. “I abused you, I made all the others do it _with me_.” He finally looked back at you. “How could you forgive me for that?” 

There was a tear loose on his cheek, you swiped it away with your thumb and showed it to him. 

“Because you’ll never do it again.” 

“How can you trust me not to?” 

You brought your hand to his cheek, not saying anything, just running your fingers over his features. 

“Damnit!” he grabbed you by the hips and shoved you against the railing, caging you with his body so that there was nothing but a thin grate of metal keeping you from falling the thirty feet downward into the sea. “Why the fuck won’t you be mad at me! You should scream or _something_!”

“Is that what your ex did too?” His eyes went wide. “I’m not her, and I trust you.” You cradled his jaw and brought him closer. “I’ll show you how much if you want.” 

You slammed your mouth into his before he could get away, not that he tried to. 

He immediately laced a hand in your hair and yanked you into the kiss harder, he lost himself in it, not noticing your hand on his wrist until you were wrenching it upwards. 

His lips were swollen, hair a mess and flush on his cheeks as he watched you with wide eyes. 

Under your throat, the cold touch of the knife's steel edge lingered, kept there by your own hand overlapping his on the handle. 

The moment lingered, your breath hot and heaving into the air between you. 

“You promise never to do it again? Fine. Carve it into my skin and remember it.” 

You let the knife drop from your grasp as he went to his knees, a needy sound leaving his mouth as his hands scrambled with the ties to your pants, you were no better, cursing softly as his damp breath brushed over where you were already dripping wet in your underwear. 

You canted your hips toward his face, only stopping when he took the sharp point of the knife and drew it down the front of your pants and through your underwear. 

The knife was razor sharp and parted the fabric effortlessly, shredding it and leaving it to drop at your feet. 

The tip of the knife needled at your hip. 

“Take your shirt off.” 

When a man with a knife that close to your clit told you to take your shirt off, you did exactly that. You pulled the fabric over your head and let it flutter to the ground, gripping at the thin edge of the railing as you waited for Yellow to draw the ice-cold edge over your skin.

Instead, you felt the rough, hot drag of his tongue over your slit, a steady, wet pressure lingering on the bud of your clit. 

You groaned, eyes still locked to the glinting of the silver knife. 

He lowered it to your skin carefully, abandoning your pussy completely to focus on his task. His free hand came to your opposite hip, spreading over the skin and pressing you back into the rail, the cold iron firm against your bare ass. 

You twitched as he selected the skin above your right hip for his first cut, the knife so sharp that you only felt it’s cold touch, not even registering the pain of the gash until hot blood slowly seeped out, forming black, gemstone droplets along your skin in the moonlight. 

He shifted between your legs, pressing his entire forearm to your hip to keep you still as the knife tickled through the next few cuts, blood gradually gathering and dripping in rivulets down your leg. 

You trembled, alternating between starting at the intense look on his face and the pattern that was slowly forming on your skin. 

Pilots wings, he was marking you with pilots wings. 

A thick droplet of blood ran down your hip and curled to the interior of your thigh, he followed it with his eyes, and then looked at you. 

Without blinking, he brought his mouth to the interior of your leg, running his tongue across the fat drop and sucking it into his mouth. 

You moaned, still held captive by the blade and trembling with the warm shockwaves of pleasure that were beginning to emanate from the delicate tracing of your insignia. 

He let his mouth fall open in your gaze, blood-stained teeth and ruby lips glinting at you freely, a private showing for you to witness. 

His hands gripped your hips, tight even over the wound he had just inflicted. He spun you around, tilting your chest down over the railing until you were bent in half over it, completely exposed to him. 

“Shit.” he mumbled against your neck, the hand holding the knife snaking around and back into sight, it lingered for a moment over your collar bone, but then he thought differently, sweeping the palm of his free hand and the very tip of the knife down the ridges of your spine until you felt him fall to his knees behind you. He lay the knife on your lower back, balancing it carefully and then releasing it entirely. 

“Hold onto that for me.” 

Without giving you any time, he was on you, his tongue swirling around your entrance and sucking at the rim. 

You groaned, desperate to rock back into his face and completely unable to. You trembled with the effort it took to hold still, the knife teetering on your spine, just over where Yellow hands kept you spread open wide for him. 

Wet sounds rose from his greedy mouth, sucking lightly and loosening you until you were so soaked and spit-slick that he could stuff two fingers into you and scissor you open. 

“Thanks for keeping this nice and safe.” 

When he finally rose from his knees behind you, your breath was heaving and you were dripping blood and slick onto the balcony. 

He wasted no time in lining himself up, thrusting into you with one, swift motion and holding himself there, stock still and flush to your hips. 

You groaned, impatient as he finally picked up the knife, retracing the path up your spine until he found a spot on your shoulder blade that pleased him. 

He didn’t fuck you so much as he ground into you, agonizingly slow and deep, magma hot inside of you as you waited. 

He cut into you delicately, gently beginning to thrust as he made his first incision. It was maddening.

He would thrust a few times, brushing your prostate and making your knees weak, then he would still, continuing the pattern on your shoulder only to repeat the process. 

Whatever he was writing, it felt long, burning hot and slick as your blood wet the patch of skin he chose. 

You gasped as he made his last cut and sighed, kissing the carving he had just made. You heard something clatter to the ground, and then his hand was crushing a handful of your thigh, spreading your legs wider as he began to thrust wildly into your body. 

Your mouth fell open immediately, a borderline scream leaving you as he _finally_ fucked you. 

Blood ran down your arm, pooling between your fingers as the physical exertion caused the cuts on your shoulder to bleed uncontrollably. You panted into the open air, bent over the expansive fall into the sea as Yellow pressed himself flat to your back and lapped at the overflowing puddle of blood that pooled in your spine. 

“I love you.” He held you tighter, pulling you back to meet his hips with fingers that dug into the new wound over your hip and sent a flood of pleasure and pain to your mind. “I love you.”

Something that was warm trickled down your spine from where he had buried his face. You had a feeling that it wasn’t blood. 

“Yellow-” You were cut off with a groan as he hit the perfect spot inside of you. “I love-I love you too.” You looked out over the ocean, viridian and vibrant. “Look Yellow.” you reached behind you and grabbed his hands off of your uninjured hip, intertwining your fingers on the railing and holding on for dear life. “The sun is rising.” 

The sky turned gold and hopeful as he finished inside of you, helping you through your own climax as the new day dawned.

In that beautiful, early morning light, you bled. 


End file.
